Page 64

Bren

The night had changed drastically.One moment I’d been sitting at the bar and moping about Honey and then there she was. The kiss had also been completely and totally unexpected and had altered my fundamental chemistry. I hadn’t known that kisses coulddothat, but Honey’s kiss had. If I went to the hospital and they told me that all of my internal organs had been rearranged, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Her kiss had changed me.

My life was now split into two sections: before the kiss and after the kiss. Now that I was in my AK, After Kiss era, I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I found myself standing outside of Sapph and then turning in the direction of my car.

“Wait. I didn’t drive here. Did you?” I asked her. I hadn’t planned this very well. I hadn’t planned this at all. I just knew that I wanted to get her someplace quieter so we could talk and figure this shit out and I could maybe have a panic attack in a safe environment.

Because I was absolutely going to have some sort of attack when I realized what the hell I’d just agreed to.

“Bren. I can drive us,” Honey said, squeezing my hand hard enough to get me to focus. It had started to rain just a little bit, making the sidewalk shiny.

“What?” I asked, too busy staring at the way her lips formed the words than what she was actually saying.

“I can drive us. Just give me directions.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Honey’s carturned out to be a truck that she’d parked pretty far away from the bar.

“It’s hard to find street parking, but I need my truck,” she said, patting the passenger door. She opened it for me and gave me a hand to get up, even though I didn’t need it.

“Thanks,” I said.

The interior was clean and organized and the upholstery smelled like her. I inhaled and closed my eyes as she hopped into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.

“Okay, where are we going?” I put the address into my phone and set it in the holder on her console. The truck was older and didn’t have any bells or whistles except for a CD player.

The detached voice of the GPS told Honey where to go as I fidgeted in the passenger seat and tried not to freak the fuck out.

Honey reached over with one hand and squeezed my thigh.

“Take a deep breath with me.”

I looked over and she flashed me a smile, her teeth bright in the headlights of an oncoming car.

“Inhale for one, two, three, four, hold for one, two, three four, and exhale for one, two, three, four.” We did that a few times and it did help a little bit.

“You looked like you were going to open the door and try to escape,” she said as she reached a stoplight.

“I wasn’t,” I said, but I couldn’t lie and say it hadn’t crossed my mind. Not seriously, of course. I’d never do something that dangerous or dramatic to get away from her. And it wasn’t her, necessarily, that I wanted to get away from. It was everything else.

The word “relationship” kept banging around in my brain. That word scared the shit out of me. I’d never done the relationship thing, and for a good reason. Relationships were messy and they could hurt and wreck you and I’d had more than enough of people disappointing me and hurting me already in my life. I didn’t need to take on more of it.

Being by myself was comfortable and safe and I had my damn cat.

What more could I need? Financial security would keep me warm at night.

And then Honey had smashed into my life in two different ways, attacked me on two different fronts.

Now we were driving to my apartment.

“I’m not bringing you to my place for sex,” I blurted out. “In case you thought that was what this is. It’s not.”

Honey let out that low laugh that made me think about her naked.

“Let’s start with talking first. Getting naked would complicate things and I’d rather lay everything out on the table first, you know?”

That made sense.