Page 18 of Wrecked By You

I didn’t know why my heart was so raw when it came to this man. Well, I did. When he’d said he’d had feelings for me,I’d wanted to demand why he hadn’t told me that sooner, but I knew why. It was because I’d started dating Kyle.

Fine,I texted.

He sent a happy-face emoji.

I didn’t respond. What was happening?

Twelve

Damon

Saturday morning, I asked Mom to watch the boys and went to Isla’s place to help paint. After knocking many times, I heard the radio blaring. I decided to go around the back of the house. I saw the back door was open, so I walked inside, feeling slightly like I was intruding. I tried to dismiss it.

“Hello?” I called out, raising my voice over Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.” I wandered into the front room. “Hello?”

Suddenly, she appeared and screamed loudly.

I jumped back.

She was holding out a paintbrush as if she was going to kill me with it.

She dropped the paintbrush in a pan and gave me the most incredulous look as she took off her pink gloves. “What the heck, Damon? You scared me to death.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The situation was crazy. “I’m sorry. I heard that you needed help painting, and I wanted to come.”

Instead of looking happy about it, she glared at me. “Who told you that?” She stuck a hand on her hip. “Wait, I don’t need you to answer. I know who told you that. One of your brothers.Probably McCrae. I ran into him yesterday getting coffee at Millie’s.”

I shrugged and picked up the paintbrush. “Where do you want me to start?”

“I don’t need your help.” She ripped it out of my hand and dropped it back into the pan.

I hadn’t expected this much resistance. I scoffed and looked around. “It seems like you do if you want to have those two hundred dollars taken off your rent.”

She glared at me even harder with those ice-blue eyes. “Who told you that?”

I shrugged and stared into her eyes. “There’s no shame in someone coming to help you put in a hard day’s work. In fact, I think you could just say thank you.”

Her eyes went wide. “Thank you? Thank you?” She took a step closer to me, and I suddenly wanted to kiss her. “Okay, Damon, thank you for icing me out of your life. Thank you for acting like I was some insane stalker because I still wanted to be friends with you. Thank you for making it really easy to leave Refuge Falls two years ago.”

I was flabbergasted. “What are you talking about?”

She dug her heel into the floor and pointed at me in a way that said I was about to have a major chewing out. “I thought we were best friends.”

My mind flitted through all the years. “We were.”

Her face suddenly turned sad. “You got married, and I was happy for you. But it changed things between us, and you know it. I’m not blaming you. That’s marriage.”

My heart thumped loudly, and without realizing how it had happened, we were facing the elephant in the room. The elephant that had been between us since she’d left this town. Hell, since I’d gotten married. She was right. But she wasn’tgoing to get away with acting like it was my fault. “You had just as much part in that as I did.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “What are you talking about? You mean I tried to support you? Yes. I tried to be in your life and support you with your new wife.”

Unable to stop myself, I found myself saying, “You told me marriage wouldneverwork for you. You told me that with the past and your dad, you were broken, so you never wanted to get married and never wanted to have children. Do you remember that?”

Her face froze, and then she walked back into the kitchen. “Get out!” she yelled over her shoulder. “I don’t need help.”

She wasn’t getting off the hook. I followed her. “No. If you’re bringing up all the past, then we need to examine it, because there was a certain horse ride that I remember we had a pretty serious conversation. In fact, I had a ring in my pocket.”

We were going through the sliding glass door when she screeched to a stop. “What?”