With a shake of her head, Meg stretched out a hand. I took it quickly, and she helped heave me over the windowsill. I inelegantly scrambled through the opening, falling into a heap on the floor.
This had to be up there as one of the top three most humiliating experiences of my life.
“So you want to tell me why you’re playing Joey to my Dawson all of a sudden?” Meg asked dryly, switching the overhead light on. She retreated to the opposite side of the room, clearly putting as much distance between us as possible.
Let me tell ya, nothing made a guy feel wanted like being treated like a leper.
I didn’t answer her right away. I was too busy looking around the space I used to know as well as my own room. Shit, it was exactly the same as it had been when we were teenagers, down to the Leonardo DiCaprio poster.
“Is it still there?” I asked, crossing to the far wall. I lifted the edge of the poster and peeked beneath it, my chest became tight. The crooked lines were faded but were still dark enough to see. I quickly counted the tallies. “Wait a minute; this isn’t right.” I frowned.
“What are you talking about?” Meg approached cautiously. I noted how she kept a respectable distance between us. What did she think I was going to do? Maul her?
I’d only maul her if she were into it.
I peeled back the poster and pointed to the marks. “There’s no way you were winning. I beat you the last three times we played.”
Meg huffed loudly. “And I spanked your ass the dozen times before that.”
The mention of spanking asses made me hot. I noticed her cheeks flushed red.
I cleared my throat, aware of the thick tension that had built up between us. “Yeah, well, those numbers can’t be right. I was always much better at rummy than you.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “You’re delusional. And have a bad memory.”
“My memory is just fine, thanks,” I retorted.
Meg ran her hands up and down her arms. I could see goosebumps on her skin from the cool breeze coming through the open window. “As fun as it is to stand around arguing with you at the butt crack of dawn, you want to tell me why you’re here? And why you appear to have an aversion to the front door?”
There was no way to handle this but directly. I pulled her underwear out of my pocket and handed it to her.
“What the hell?” she snapped, grabbing them from me and shoving them in a drawer.
“You ran off. You left your panties behind, so I’m returning them,” I said bluntly. I turned to face her, but her eyes slid past mine, not meeting my gaze. She wouldn’t look at me.
“I didn’t run off,” she argued weakly.
“Then what do you call it then? Because I thought things were going pretty good, and the next thing I know, you’re hightailing it out of there, not even bothering to put your shoes on.” The burn of her rejection stung, and it was hard to keep the anger out of my voice.
Meg chewed her bottom lip and picked at her thumb. Her cheeks were flushed red, and I wanted to touch her so badly I had to clench my fists to resist the urge. “It should never have happened,” she said succinctly. With finality.
Okay, that hurt.
“Way to knock a guy down a peg or ten,” I muttered, running my hands through my hair.
Meg narrowed her eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I bruise your precious male ego? What the hell did you think was going to happen when you showed up here?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Did you think I’d gush and be flattered that you almost broke your neck climbing my tree like a monkey? Have you never heard of a phone?”
She was pissed off. I was pissed off. This probably wouldn’t end well.
“Would you have answered if I had called?” I threw back at her.
She pressed her mouth resolutely closed. Her silence was all the answer I needed.
“You’re standing there giving me shit about climbing your tree—which, fair enough, wasn’t one of my brighter ideas—but I wasn’t the one who fled the scene like I had committed a crime.”
Meg’s eyes flashed. “We were drunk. We had sex. End. Of. Story. What else is there to say? It was a mistake, Adam. We hate each other. Sleeping together was the worst possible decision.”
I took a long, steadying breath. “I have never hated you, Meg. Not a single day in my life,” I said softly, my voice cracking.
That seemed to take the wind out of her sails. Her anger melted away, and she seemed to deflate. She sat down heavily on her bed with an audible sigh. “What do you want me to say?” She finally looked up at me, her expression filled with regret. It fucking sucked.