Calla almost choked again. “That . . . that sounds like an awkward conversation.”
I sighed as I pushed my plate away from me. “I do feel terrible. I wish I’d pulled my head out of my ass long enough to give him a chance to explain why he reacted that way, and I wish I’d just told him the truth.”
“He ain’t completely innocent in all of this,” Katie argued. “Remember, he was so drunk he thought he had sex. I’ve drunk a lot in my day. A lot. Like so much, I’m pretty sure I’ve turned into a brewery, but I’ve never been so drunk that I didn’t know if I had sex.”
Calla nodded as she poked at her scrambled eggs. “True.”
Neither had I ever drunk that much, but that was beside the point. Taking a sip of my soda, my shoulders sank as the weight of the situation settled on them. I straightened my glasses as I sighed. “I . . . I really like him, guys. I really do.”
“Duh.” Katie rolled her eyes. “You’re in love with him.”
I ignored that comment, because love . . . love was a scary four-letter word. “He’s a good guy, a really good guy. And you remember the last dude I kind of seriously dated?” I asked Katie.
She wrinkled her nose. “Before Dean the ginger?”
“Oh my God,” Calla murmured, stifling her giggle with the back of her hand.
I shook my head and then took a drink. “Yes. Remember Donnie, the—”
“The really nice guy who took you to the Eagles game and you totally got with in the parking garage, but turned out to be married?” Katie supplied happily.
My lips pressed together. “No. That was Ryan the fucker and thanks for reminding me about him. He also had a kid he never told me about. I was talking about Donnie the starving artist who stole my jewelry my grammy left me.”
Calla blinked several times. “Wow. A married guy and a thief?”
“I normally don’t attract the greatest people.” I shrugged, but I thought of Henry, and that made my skin crawl. The thing was, I knew I dated guys like that for a reason. They were safe. “But Reece is not like them, and a part of me . . .” I let out a slow breath. “I have spent years lusting after him.” And I’d probably spent years feeling something stronger than that.
Sitting there, I shook my head. What was I even doing? I just needed to tell him the truth. Let this thing between us die before I got burned big time, but I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t not try with him. Not after all these years of wanting him.
God, I sounded like I had a split personality. Go after him. Don’t go after him. Tell him the truth. Don’t say anything. I was giving myself whiplash.
“You need to tell him the truth,” Calla advised. “As soon as possible. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”
I arched my brows at her.
“Seriously,” she insisted. “It’s not like you lied about something major.”
“I think not telling him we didn’t have sex is pretty major.”
“Not really.” Calla smiled at me. “Trust me, there are worse lies out there. It’s not like you lied about being with someone else while with him or anything like that. He’ll understand. Right, Katie?”
She watched me, pouty lips turned down at the corners.
Calla elbowed her as she frowned. “Right, Katie?”
Frost coated my insides as Katie’s eyes clouded over. “I don’t know, Roxy. Tell the truth before he gets in those pants of yours for real. If you don’t, I think you’ve gone too far.”
Agreeing, I nodded slowly. The same dread I experienced the first time I realized I needed to tell Reece what really happened returned.
Calla cleared her throat. “It’ll be okay.”
“She’s right,” Katie agreed, stabbing her last link with her fork. “Besides, you broke Henry Williams’s window and he still gave you an orgasm. You’ll probably get an even better one out of this.”
Smacking my palm off my forehead, I groaned. “Oh God. Who doesn’t know about that?”
“No one, honey.” Katie bit off half the link. “Absolutely no one.”
Calla and I watched Katie speed out of the parking lot in her Mini Cooper, almost clipping a minivan that had a Baby On Board bumper sticker, but when the van parked, an elderly couple climbed out.
“You’re really not going to hold a séance, are you?” Calla asked.
I laughed loudly. I’d told them about the strange things happening in my apartment. Luckily neither of them thought I was crazy or that I was weird for thinking that my place may be haunted. Of course, Katie had lots of ideas of how to address the strange happenings, and one of them was by calling someone in town who supposedly communed with spirits and could host a séance.
“Ah, you know, I don’t think that will be a great idea,” I said, grinning. “If there really is a ghostie roaming around, it hasn’t tried to scare me. In a way, it’s been strangely helpful.”
Calla snorted. “I bet more people would like to have a ghost like that.”
“And the whole idea of séance or allowing a psychic in the house just—I don’t know, if that’s what it really is, I don’t want to know what’s there. As long as I don’t wake up in the middle of the night and find it staring at me, then I’m cool with it.”
“Oh my God.” She shuddered. “That’s so creepy.” There was a pause. “But what if it isn’t a ghost?”