Page 203 of Branded
“I also know that you may think you need to be perfect and steady and totally unaffected by everything from your past while you play superwoman and take care of everyone else.” I laced our fingers together. “But you don’t need to be that with me.”
Her gaze went to the window. “We’d be better off ending this now.”
“You don’t need to be that with me, honey.”
Her shoulders inched up. “You’d be better off.”
“You don’t need to be that with me,” I repeated.
“This is me trying to take care of you,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“So you agree that we’re not going further?”
“No,” I said. “We’re not giving up. We’re not searching for perfect. We’re going to be us and real and figure out if we want to keep being real together.”
I’d meant the words to be a comfort, but they only seemed to make her shoulders inch up more.
“Beth.”
Finally, she looked at me.
“We haven’t even been on a first date, sugarpie.”
Her expression was blank.
“At least give me that. One date. A real one, and then you can dump my ass if you want.”
Twenty-Four
Beth
I was determined to let him go.
Determined that what was best for him was not hanging around me and my mess, but since he’d clearly done some self-reflection and was moving in the right direction, he didn’t need me to fix him.
He’d fixed himself.
So, I should let him go.
Because I definitely couldn’t be real with him.
But he was staring at me with gorgeous blue eyes and talking to me with a soft voice and his expression was earnest and…
I’d wanted him for so long.
And…it was just one date.
“Shopping and water bottles didn’t count as a date?” I asked lightly, trying to contain the hope and joy beginning to bubble in my heart.
“No, sugarpie.”
“But we even had pretzels.”
His gaze had returned to the road, but I saw the side of his mouth closest to me tip up.
And God, making him smile was…a fucking gift sent from above. It made everything inside me warm and thaw and not even think about that basement I’d filled with concrete.
