Page 82 of The Gingerbread Bakery
‘Yeah, I know. I probably shouldn’t have hit you.’
Mac shrugged, a small smirk lifting the side of his mouth. ‘I deserved it.’
Annie sighed, slouching back down onto the bed, the fight going out of her too. ‘Anyway, it didn’t work,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t forget you.’
Mac dropped to the floor in front of her wedging his body between her thighs. She put a hand gently on the cheek she had smacked.
‘I tried,’ she said. ‘I wanted to, but I couldn’t do it.’ She shook her head, biting back tears. ‘And then you show up here and work your way into my life. What am I supposed to do?’
‘I tried to forget you, too,’ he whispered, leaning toward her.
‘Why didn't you come talk to me that night at the party?’
Mac shook his head with a laugh. ‘That would have gone a lot worse than this,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling I would have won the fight against Ryan, but you definitely would have kicked my ass.’
Annie’s laugh mixed with the tears falling down her cheeks. Mac wiped them away with his thumb, cupping her face in his hands.
‘I’m sorry I stood you up that day. I shouldn’t have left like that. But in my defense, I was young and stupid, and I ran away. I bartended in Maine, and I painted houses in Tulsa, and I mucked stalls on a ranch in Texas and none of those places felt like home and no other woman I met felt like you. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life, leaving the way I did. I needed time away from this place, Annie, but I never should have left without talking to you.’
‘I was young, too. I’m not sure that’s a very good defense,’ Annie whispered, leaning toward him until their foreheads touched.
Mac smirked and Annie was close enough she could kiss him if she were braver.
‘You were young, but not stupid. Standing you up was just one of the many stupid things I was up to that year.’
‘Really? What else you got?’ she said, smiling again. She couldn't seem to help it around Mac anymore.
‘Well,’ he said, his smile growing to match hers. ‘I got frostbite on my pinky because I was still refusing to wear warm gloves.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
‘I know. Then there was the time I drove a hitchhiker from Philly to DC, and I was only about seventy-five percent sure he wasn’t going to murder me.’
Annie gasped. ‘That is seriously dangerous.’
‘That’s kind of my point. Don’t tell my mom. And then there’s the tattoo I got.’
Annie raised an eyebrow. She’d never seen a tattoo on Mac before. ‘What tattoo?’
‘It's on my rib cage,’ he said.
‘Okay, so what is it? Plenty of people get tattoos.’
‘But do plenty of people get tattoos of the name of the person they had just unceremoniously ditched and were pretty sure hated them?’
‘You didn't.’
Mac leaned away from her and lifted his shirt. In tiny script on his left ribs was her name. It was so small she hadn't seen it last night when he undressed but there it was plain as day.Anniein black ink under his heart.
‘You did,’ she whispered, running a finger over the tattoo. Mac squirmed under her touch.
‘I did.See,young and stupid. I wanted to keep you close even when I knew I didn’t deserve to.’
She leaned forward and pressed her forehead into his chest. ‘Oh, Mac,’ she whispered. ‘Why is this so hard?’
‘It doesn’t have to be. The first year I was away I was scared and lonely. The second year I did a lot of stupid shit to forget you. But after that, I really did figure some things out. Istudiedwhile I was out there, Annie. I worked at a lot of places, always thinking about what I could bring back here. What would make my dad’s place even better.’
‘That’s great, Mac. Really, but?—’
