Page 57 of Accidental Mile High Daddy
He didn’t answer. That didn’t stop me.
“I don’t know what that was.” My tone was soft, gentle, the same one I used when I was trying to talk seriously with the pre-teens in my class who were flunking. “But it didn’t feel casual.”
He froze, one arm pushed through the arm hole.
I saw it, then — the way his lips parted, the way his body locked. “Matt?” I tried again, willing my voice to stay steady.
He blinked once, twice, before his jaw clenched and he sat up fully, pulling his shirt over his head like it gave him a wall to hide behind.
“I’m sorry,” he said carefully.
No. No, no, no.
When he spoke again, it was as if every word had been selected with the express purpose of trying not to upset someone when that was inevitable. “I shouldn’t have let it get this far,” he continued. “That’s on me.”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I led you on,” he said, his Adam’s apple working, his gaze far off in the distance. “I’m not… Fuck, Sienna, I’m not looking for anything. I should have been clearer about that.”
I stared at him, blinking like that would somehow make him make sense. “You’re notlooking for anything?”
“I told you I don’t do relationships,” he said, the words a little tighter now. “I told you why.”
“When you were apologizing for panicking and running away. And then—that.” I gestured to the sheets beneath me, to my bare body wrapped in them.
He looked at me then, his gaze cold, controlled, locked down. I almost wished he’d stayed looking at the fucking wall.
“No,” I scoffed, pushing off the bed, dragging the sheet with me like armor as I stood. “No, you don’t get to do that, Matt. You don’t get to act like that meant nothing. You don’t get to just?—”
“I never said it meant nothing,” he said. “What I meant was that it wasn’tsupposedto mean anything.”
“Oh, fantastic,” I snapped. “Glad we’re figuring out the semantics here.”
“I’m being honest.”
“No.” My volume climbed, my anger biting through, becausefuck him, this wasn’t fair.“You’re being cruel. You’re trying to walk it backagainbecause you’re scared of what that was.”
He pushed off the mattress, calm, even, grabbing his jeans from the floor and stepping into them. “I never made you any promises.”
I physically recoiled, the breath leaving me all at once, half angry and half absolutely blown away by how insane this was. “Wow,” I whispered.
He winced, just barely, but I noticed it. He didn’t even try to take it back.
I shook my head, a bitter, angry laugh crawling up my throat. “I must be the dumbest woman alive. I mean, really, sleeping with my ex’s brother?Again? After telling myself that I wouldn’t, that I needed to keep my distance so I wouldn’t end up falling and then fuckingfalling anyway?—”
“Don’t do that,” he said, the words punching out of him. “Don’t be self-deprecating. Don’t make it about?—”
“What?” I interrupted, my stomach twisting, my anger rising. “About me being stupid enough to believe that you actually cared about me? That maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t some fucked upgameto you?”
“It wasn’t a game!” He shot back, the boom of his voice cutting through the air. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Then tell me what itwas, Matt!”
He stared at me, his chest rising and falling too quick, too wild.
The silence stretched too long.
I dug my fingers into the sheet, my heart beating so hard it made my sternum ache. “You know,” I said quietly, “I told myself I wouldn’t fall for this again. I told myself that I was just coming here to hear you out, that I could handle you, that I could handle this. That if I just didn’t believe it was real, it couldn’t hurt me.”
