“Yeah,” he said, letting his hands come up to her arms. “I did.”
She met his gaze, her own honest and earnest and remorseful. “I really am so very sorry. What I did was selfish, and worse, I never even gave a second thought to the mess I left you in. It was all about me trying to get revenge on Cindy, but you got screwed over so much more than she did.”
True. He’d been dumped by his very angry coach, humiliated in front of the entire town, and his family had been shocked and disappointed in him. He hadn’t gotten over it for a damn long time, certainly much longer than anyone cared about the damn video. And he’d been confused too, because he’d liked Rory. She’d been quiet but nice. And funny. He’d never seen her as one of the mean girls. “Why did you do it?” he asked. “What did you mean, you wanted revenge on Cindy?”
She gave him a questioning look. “You knew that she accused me of being the one to break into her dad’s office. She said that she’d seen me do it, that I was the one stealing money from the coaches’ bags, among other things.”
“No,” Max said slowly. “I didn’t know that.”
“When I actually caught her at it, she turned it around on me,” she said softly, her eyes on his. “I was suspended.”
“I knew you’d been suspended for stealing something from the school but I didn’t know what.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t steal anything. And she kept getting me in trouble, one thing after another, making things up so I came off as unreliable in case I tried to turn her in.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’d like to say I dumped her for being a bitch but the fact is, I didn’t care what she was like. You should have turned her in regardless.”
She just looked at him.
“Oh.” He let out a low laugh. “Right. You did. You videoed her and got me as well.”
“A mistake,” she said. “You were collateral damage, and I’m so very sorry, Max.”
He got that. He appreciated that. But the past was the past and he had some things to say too. “Listen, I was a teenage jerk and I thought the world revolved around me. It never occurred to me that you were in trouble, that you weren’t even targeting me. I was that self--absorbed, and I hate that.”
She started to shake her head and say something more but he covered her lips with a finger. He needed to finish, to get this out, because he was realizing a -couple of things. He’d wronged her in much the same way everyone else in her life had, and that was a hard pill to swallow because he prided himself on always trying to do the right thing. “You’re done apologizing to me,” he said. “I was a complete dick about it earlier, but I was wrong. Then and now.”
“Max—-”
He applied gentle pressure on her mouth. “There’s nothing to forgive, okay? You were only doing what you had to to get through and I get it. Now it’s my turn to apologize to you.”
This startled her into silence. He smiled, his fingers stroking her jaw while his thumb rasped over her lower lip. “I should have listened to you. But also I should’ve known there was more to the story. I should’ve asked you, but maybe it’s better that we waited because we’re old now and . . . ” He stopped to smile when she choked out a laugh. “And with all this dubious maturing I’ve realized something.”
She sucked in a breath and lifted her worried gaze to his. “What?”
With a slight shake of his head, he bent a little and brushed his mouth over hers. “There’s something I want.”
“Another kiss?” she asked, her voice a hopeful whisper that made his chest both swell and ache at the same time.
“Yes,” he said. “But more.”
“A bunch of kisses?”
At the hint of laughter in her voice, he smiled. She’d relaxed and was teasing him. “More,” he said softly.
She blinked. “You . . . want to sleep with me?”
“Oh yes,” he breathed, pulling her in. “I want that, Rory. And I want it bad too. But still more.”
“I . . . don’t understand.”
“I want something between us.”
She froze. “Like . . . a condom?”
He laughed and pressed his forehead to hers. He kept thinking about what his sister said, about him giving the next woman he felt something for a shot. A real shot. He really hated to ever admit Cass might have been onto something, but he honestly had never felt this way about another woman before. “A relationship,” he said and watched her mouth fall open.
“I—- You—-” She gulped in air. “With me?”
Now they were on the same page. A damn long time coming too. “Yes,” he said and kissed her, liking the way she melted into him as if her body was way ahead of her brain at this point. “You in?”
She stared up at him. “I’m not very good at relationships,” she said very seriously.
“Says who?”
This seemed to stymie her. “Every guy I’ve ever dated?”
“Then you’ve been dating the wrong guys.” He rubbed his jaw to hers. “Take a chance, Rory. Take the risk.”