What She Forgot (What She 2)

“My grandmother raised me. But she wasn’t like MeeMaw.” I laughed. “She was hella different. Still is.”

“Are you close?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

“Do you want to be?”

I shook my head again. “Not really.”

“Do you have a lot of friends?” he asked. He was still bustling around the kitchen, putting things away, but I could tell that I had his attention.

I shook my head once more. “No.” Heat crept up my cheeks. “Just you,” I said.

He stopped what he was doing. “Okay,” he said. I kind of felt like he was letting me know it was okay that I considered myself to be his friend.

“Okay,” I replied.

Silence fell upon the room as we finished cleaning up. I dried my hands and hung the towel up where it belonged. “I guess I’ll go to bed.”

“Are you tired?” he asked.

“Not really.” And I wasn’t. I was wide awake.

“Do you want to walk Channing with me?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.” I went to put my shoes on, because I’d been walking around in my socks all evening. I got out Channing’s leash and put it on her. She danced around my feet, her feet tapping on the hardwood floor.

My shoulder brushed Clark’s arm as we walked. He looked down at me and grinned. “What?” I asked. I brushed at my lips. “Do I have something on my face?”

He leaned down like he wanted to whisper to me. “A smile.”

I knocked his shoulder with mine and laughed.

“You’re beautiful all the time, but fuck if you don’t blow me away when you smile at me,” he said.

My stomach gave that little twitch that felt so foreign to me and I didn’t even try to squash it.

“When you smile at me for real, your scar does this little quirk,” I said.

He reached up and absently ran his finger along the scar. “Not much I can do about that, unfortunately.”

“Oh, no,” I rushed to say. “I just meant…well…” I chopped my hand through the air. “Never mind,” I finally muttered. I shook my head. It sounded stupid even in my head.

He knocked my arm with his again. “Say it.” I had all of his attention, and that was a heady feeling. It wasn’t one I was sure I liked.

“I can tell when you’re faking it, because of the scar.”

“I never fake it.”

I rolled my eyes. “You fake it sometimes.”

He laid his hand on his chest like he was appalled. “I can assure you that I have never faked it in my life, Miss Punter. How dare you suggest that I would do such a thing.”

I laughed out loud.

He whistled. It was a low, soft sound. “There she goes again, being more and more beautiful,” he said, his voice nothing more than a whisper.

He stopped and I stopped too, turning to face him. He reached up and touched my cheek gently with his fingertips. Then his hand slid down enough that he could tilt my face up a little, and his lips touched mine.