Page 102 of We Met Like This
“I don’t,” he interrupted. “At all. But it’s complicated.”
“How? What is it? My past? My boss?”
“It’smypast,” he shot back.
“Your exes really screwed up your ability to trust, didn’t they?” I asked.
“My exes are definitely screwing me over here.” His eyes looked sad.
I wondered if there was anything I could say to convince a guy who had been cheated on twice before that it wouldn’t happen again. That I was a safe bet. “The past is in the past, Oliver. You can’t let it dictate your future.”
“Do you really believe that?”
I nodded.
“So what…” He looked around the dark circular space where we stood. “You want me to take you right here, right now, in this bug-infested silo?” He stalked toward me, a new intensity in his eyes.
My heart pounded heavy in my chest. I waited with bated breath for him to collide with me. I wanted him so badly. I was more sure about that than I was about almost anything in my life right now.
But then he stopped, his mind taking over, doubt clouding his face. “I can’t… We can’t.”
I crossed my arms in front of me, suddenly feeling vulnerable and embarrassed. Because right now, I was leading with my emotions, like I always did, and he was leading with his logic, like he always seemed to. “I don’t need to be somebody else’s mistake. I was that for two years.”
“You’re not a mistake,” he said.
“Just a bad decision?”
He finished his walk toward me. But instead of pulling me against him, he brushed past me to the stale grain and began climbing the pile, slipping and losing purchase with every step. Eventually, he was at the top.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Seeing if there is a signal up here.”
“Of course you are,” I muttered under my breath.
“There is,” he said after several minutes. “We’ll be unstuck soon.”
And it didn’t even require a makeout, I thought bitterly.
CHAPTER 30
“I feel like there are still bugs on me,” I said, rubbing my hands up and down my arms as I sat in the passenger seat. It was dark outside. The sun had set while we were trapped. Oliver had called the nonemergency police line and in less than an hour a handful of firemen had pried open the door and freed us. We got a serious lecture about trespassing. And had I been less irritated, I might’ve noticed that two of the firefighters were attractive and seemingly single, and that being rescued from a silo would make an amazing meet-cute. Fine, I noticed. But I didn’t care. I wished I did because that would mean I wasn’t hung up, once again, on someone who was apparently completely wrong for me.
“There aren’t any bugs,” Oliver assured me. He’d already checked twice before we’d even gotten in the car.
“I know, but itfeelslike it.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “Did you hate every minute of that? The trespassing, the being stuck inside, the lecture from people in authority?”
“It wasn’t my favorite.” He took the turn toward our hotel. “Food first or shower?”
“We don’t have to do everything together,” I said.
“I figured since we only have one car…”
“I can get something delivered. I don’t want to keep you from doing whatever you might want to do here.” Yes, I was pouting. It was more than pouting; my heart hurt and I hated that I’d given him enough of it to affect me this much.
“I’m not as free-spirited as you. I’m careful. I like to calculate risks and rewards of things and sometimes that bites me in the ass.”
“There aren’t enough potential rewards to justify the many risks with me?”
