Page 32 of Entwined (Monarch)

She punched my shoulder. “What’s so damn funny?”

“Ow!” I pretended to be in pain as I rubbed the spot where she’d hit me. Siena rose to full height and stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for me to explain myself.

“Okay.” I took a breath. “Okay.” I took another. “Oh, man. That was some funny shit. Here you are talking to yourself. I come up thinking you’re talking to me and I scare the living shit out of you. And all because I was trying to be nice and bring back your dishes.” I held them up as proof. “See? All nice and clean.”

She looked confused. “You walked over here to bring back a dish?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“In the dark?”

“Yep.” I patted my jacket pocket. “But I do have that trusty flashlight button on my phone. You know, just in case it gets dark. Or I get scared,” I teased.

“Yeah. Like someone jumping out of the bushes at you?”

“I didn’t jump. And I wasn’t in the bushes.”

“You were totally lurking.”

“No, I like,totallywasn’t.” I imitated a Valley Girl.

“Then whatdoyou call what you were doing?”

“Taking a delightful walk in the moonlight. Bringing back your dishes.”

“Oh, you mean from the brownies youhate,” she mocked in a deep voice. Clearly, she was still a little bent out of shape about me insulting her. I was surprised she hadn’t brought them up before.

She had every right to confront me. If she’d only known the truth. “I didn’t hate them,” I confessed.

“Probably threw them in the trash.” She pouted as she kicked at a pebble on the ground. “And they aredelicious,by the way.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. “Were,” I corrected her.

“Were what?”

“Delicious.” Her head cocked, confused. “Your brownies were delicious,” I added.

“I thought youhated brownies.” She mocked me again in a burly, snotty voice, screwing up her face.

“I lied . . . And I’m sorry.”

That shut her up. It appeared she didn’t know what to say to my admission.

“I wanted to make you mad.”

She scoffed, “Well, you did a good job.”

“Good.”

“Wait, what? Why’d you want to make me mad? I was trying to apologize.”

“Like I told you before, I was still a little irritated with you. Then you were there in my trailer, pissing me off again. So . . .” I shrugged. What else could I say?

She rolled her eyes. “So, you thought you’d insult me? Real mature.”

I grinned. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she sneered. “No.”

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