Page 18 of Summer Kisses

I nodded. "Yeah."

He raised a brow as he opened the door. "Are you okay?"

"We can talk outside."

"Am I already in the doghouse?" Brady teased. "I guess it was bound to happen. I've never been engaged before.”

"You came close though," I couldn't help but retort.

Brady sobered as he opened the passenger-side truck door for me. "I was."

I waited until he closed the door and rounded the hood to get in. "What happened between you two?"

"Erin never liked that I hung around you."

I frowned. "Most of your girlfriends didn't. But I stayed away when you got serious. I didn't want to come between you."

Brady turned on the engine. "Yeah, but that was a problem for me."

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused by his response.

"I didn't want to stay away from you. I grew to resent how she complained about our relationship. She wanted me to break all ties."

"I would have stayed away if that's what she wanted." I would have done it even though I would have hated it.

"She wanted me to tell you that we couldn't talk anymore. That wasn't okay with me."

"Did you break up over it?" I asked, a little upset about that.

"She said if I wanted to move forward with her, I had to break off my friendship with you. She always had a problem with you."

Before I could ask about that, he continued. "I told her I didn't want to move forward with her. That anyone I shared my life with would have to be okay with my friendship with you."

I sighed. "Oh, Brady."

"Don't feel sorry for me. There was more going on than that. She felt the need to control our relationship, to dictate what I could and couldn't do. I was okay with it to a point. But I'd never walk away from you completely."

I hated that I’d been the reason that he’d broke things off with his girlfriend.

"Now we can say we tried, and it didn't work out. Maybe this will make it easier for you to be with someone else." And I could take a step back even if it hurt.

"Sam and I weren't meant to be together. I felt too young for something so serious then. I wasn't ready."

I watched his expression, which was serious. "Okay."

"You're important to me, and anyone who wants to be with me will have to deal with that."

"You're a good man, Brady Kingston." If only he could bemyman.

He reached over to take my hand. "You were upset that I suggested we move in together. I get we should have talked about it before I said something. But I didn't expect the questions we were getting. I thought it would be more about what made us go from friends to lovers."

"I thought so too."

He glanced over at me. "Do you think we should move in together to make it appear more real?"

I sighed. "I don't know. Everything's moving so fast."

His expression was pinched. "It seems to be what people expect."

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