I smacked him on the shoulder. “I can’t promise.”
“Then I’m not telling you.”
I groaned. “Okay, okay. I promise.”
“You promise what?” he prompted.
“I promise I won’t hate you.”
“My friends pretty much staged an intervention, but they called it a whore-vention.” He tried to smile but couldn’t, and I giggled at the name. “They made me promise that if I was going out, at least one of them had to be with me. And I didn’t have to stop drinking, but I had to stop giving all my money to strippers and the blackjack table, and I had to stop fighting strangers and stop sleeping with random girls. That’s basically it.”
He winced and asked tentatively, “So, do you hate me?”
I had already assumed that Walker was as typical as they came. After all, I’d been familiar with his antics before going out with him this evening. If I felt any emotion at all at this point, it was understanding. “No, I’m shocked actually. I can’t believe no one’s ever put it together that the girls are the same.”
His face relaxed and he nodded. “I know, right? I never go to a club alone and I always leave with the same friends I came with. It’s just that no one sees that part. They take their pictures, they angle them a certain way, edit them, crop them, do whatever they want and say whatever they want, and people believe them.”
The lack of bitterness or anger in his tone surprised me. He sounded completely at peace with it all.
“I wouldn’t be able to stand that,” I confessed.
“Which part?”
“The part where people thought things about me that weren’t true. I’d go nuts,” I said with a small laugh.
He reached out his hand and took mine in his. “You would go nuts trying to change everyone’s opinion of you. That in itself is a full-time job. There are some things you just have to let go of, and that’s one of them.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
He shrugged. “Depends on what they say.”
Glancing up at the clock on my wall, I noted how late it was. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really need to get to bed. I have to work in the morning.”
Walker glanced toward the clock as well, then frowned. “We haven’t talked about your work yet.”
“I really don’t want to. Not tonight. Can I tell you about it some other time?” Considering how my emotions had been so up and down from the events of the entire day and night, it was a wonder I hadn’t crashed already.
He cocked his head to one side. “You really weren’t going to go out with me?”
“I wasn’t even going to call you back,” I deadpanned.
“Ouch.” Pushing himself off the couch, he
reached for my hands and pulled me to my feet. His lean frame towered over me, especially now that I was barefoot. Taking a step toward me, he tugged my body hard against his as sexual awareness zapped through me. When he kissed the top of my head, his breath warmed my hair.
I may never wash my hair again.
Oh my God, how fan girl is that?
His fingers splayed wide as his hands pressed against my lower back. Each touch from him sent electricity racing through my veins.
Relaxing, I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him back with just as much intensity. I pulled him against me, holding him tight, savoring the contact between us. It was amazing how things had changed in the course of a few hours.
Walker stiffened, then pulled back slightly, his grip on me loosening. “Shit. I don’t have my car.”
My head dipped at the realization. “That’s right. Do you need me to drive you back to the restaurant to get it?”
Please say no.