Krit’s eyes didn’t have that twinkle. He was just friendly. Maybe that was it. Maybe I had stepped over some sort of invisible friend line that I didn’t know about before, and then he had run off. Was he giving me another chance to prove I could be a friend and not treat him like every other girl out there?

Was that what he wanted from me? For me to be an escape from his reality? I let go of the tight hold I had on his shirt and smoothed the fabric out without rubbing his stomach. I didn’t press my hands as tightly to him, and I eased away from him so that my breasts weren’t touching his back. Krit needed a friend. Someone not in his world, someone who didn’t expect him to drink, party, and entertain them.

And I wanted to be that for him. I wouldn’t think about his muscular body or his pierced tongue. Those would be off-limits. I would think of him as a friend. Someone who I didn’t have to impress and who didn’t have any expectations of me or me of him. We would just accept each other.

Krit pulled into the parking lot of a cute little diner. The coastal blue color of the wood-framed building had white trim and a large front porch. If it didn’t have the big sign out front that read, SUNNY-SIDE UP, I would have thought this was someone’s beach house. The parking lot still had several cars outside even though it was kind of late for breakfast and too early for lunch.

Once Krit had parked, he took one of my hands and helped me off the bike. My legs felt a little funny, but the feeling went away quickly. I started to take off the helmet, when Krit turned around and finished the task for me.

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him with what I hoped told him I wanted to be his friend. I would be willing to be whatever it was he needed. No one had ever needed anything from me before. The idea that he might need me for something made me feel special.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, hanging the helmet on the handlebars before glancing back at me.

“Yes. Once I realized I wasn’t about to die,” I answered honestly.

Krit laughed then reached for my hand. “Come one, love. Let’s go eat. You’re gonna love the food here.”

KRIT

I should have fucked someone last night. It was screwing with my head. Getting up at the ass-crack of dawn just so I could take Blythe to breakfast was insane. I could have gotten some sleep and taken her to dinner. And having her on the back of my bike was a terrible idea. We should’ve taken her car.

This was going to be my attempt at salvaging the friendship we had started. Thinking about how good her tits looked in that tank top and how much better they had felt on my back was not what this was supposed to be about. I was gonna have to call Brit when I got finished. She would take the edge off.

“You’re really talented. I enjoyed hearing you sing last night,” Blythe said in that sweet musical voice of hers.

I hoped the fact that I was imagining her naked and wrapped around my body wasn’t all over my face. “I’m glad you came. My sister enjoyed meeting you. Green had mentioned our new neighbor, and she is always curious.” More like Green told Trisha I was making up reasons to go visit our new neighbor all the damn time.

“She was really nice. I’m having lunch with her this week,” Blythe said, smiling, but I could see the nervous look in her eyes. “I mean . . . I hope that’s okay. I don’t mean anything by it. Just she asked me to go to lunch. She seems really nice and all, and I haven’t made any friends, exactly.”

That stung. I deserved it, but it still stung.

Her eyes flew open more, and she shook her head with a horrified expression on her face. Damn, she was adorable. “I mean. You, of course. I mean, I think we’re, I mean, you’re, I mean, uh. I know you’re a . . . friend . . . kind of . . .” She stopped trying to make sense of her ramblings. Then she pressed her lips together and dropped her eyes toward the table.

I had fucked with her head, running off like I had. Most girls would have shown up at my door demanding attention. Blythe had just accepted my absence and gone on with her life. She didn’t demand anything of anyone. Girls who looked like her usually used their beauty as weapons. She didn’t make any sense. She acted like she deserved to be treated poorly.

“About that,” I said, knowing I needed to apologize. She didn’t lift her eyes to meet mine. “I’m sorry I ran out on you that night and that I haven’t been by to see you since. I had some shit going on in my head, and I was worried. . . . I just didn’t know. . . . Fuck.” I needed to just say it. Get it out there. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about what we were doing. About why I was showing up with dinner and coming around so much. You’re not the . . .” I wasn’t going to say she wasn’t the kind of girl I fucked because it sounded wrong. “I like being around you. You make me smile and I like that. I missed you these past two weeks and I would still like to be your friend. If you would consider me as a friend, that is,” I finished.

She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and the relieved look in them told me all I needed to know. She didn’t want more than a friendship with me anyway. I wasn’t going to hurt her. She knew she was too good for me. Even if she seemed completely in the dark about her beauty, she knew I wasn’t the kind of guy she deserved.

“I’d like that. I have fun with you too. And I missed you. I don’t expect anything other than friendship.”

The plate of pancakes I ordered was set down in front of me, and the same exact order was set down in front of Blythe. There was no way she could eat all that, but I figured what she didn’t finish I would.

“This looks really good,” she said, grinning, and then a giggle escaped her lips. “I can’t believe they have whipped cream on them. And peanut butter.”

I winked at her before picking up my fork and knife. “Sweetheart, if pancakes don’t have whipped cream and peanut butter on them, then they aren’t worth eating.”

She licked her lips, causing me to almost drop the damn forkful of gooey goodness into my lap. The fantasies I’d had about her tongue. Shit! I had to get a grip.

“I’ve never actually had pancakes,” she admitted.

This time I did drop my fork.

Chapter Nine

BLYTHE

Pastor Williams hadn’t called me in the month that I had been gone. It wasn’t that I expected him to, really, because we had never talked much, but then again he had been my guardian for my entire life. Did he not care if things were working out for me? Or was he just glad that I was gone? More than likely, it was the latter.

I only had one photo from my childhood, and it was one a teacher had taken of me with my classmates in the fourth grade. She gave each student a copy in a heart-shaped frame for Valentine’s Day. I was never given a phone with a camera, and things like Facebook were off-limits to me. If Mrs. Williams had ever seen me doing anything like that, I would have paid for it.

Looking around my apartment, I realized there was a coldness to it. I had nothing to show for my life. Nothing to remember it by. I wanted memories that I could cherish. There was no reason to be sad because of my past. What I needed to do was focus on my life now. I had friends now. I also had a phone with a camera, and a laptop.

When I walked in the door, I wanted there to be photos of people in my life that made me smile. I wanted to see moments I would always remember. If I didn’t want to be different, then I needed to learn how to live like a normal person. I had thought coming here, that hiding out in my apartment and writing, was all I wanted to do.

I knew now I had been wrong. I hadn’t known about the things in life: like how good a kiss felt or how nice it felt to be held by someone. I had never had someone tell me about themselves and listen to me talk in return. Having had a taste of both, I wasn’t willing to go back to being that girl who closed herself off from the world and everyone who might hurt her.

* * *

I was also pretty sure that Mrs. Williams had been wrong about me. People liked me here. No one cringed or whispered about me when they saw me coming. Oftentimes people would turn to look at me and smile. They didn’t see the ugly evil that Mrs. Williams had always claimed was inside me. I was almost convinced she had been lying. She hated me because of my mother, but I wasn’t a bad person. Good people liked me. No one treated me like I was a walking sin.

* * *

Just maybe I was worthy of love.

Krit had taken me to breakfast yesterday, and we had then gone for a longer ride on his motorcycle along the beach road. When we had gotten back, he had come inside and we had talked about my classes. He had read me the lyrics of a song he was writing and asked me what I thought. It was late afternoon before he left to get a nap before his performance that night.

Linc had called later that evening to ask if I wanted to see a movie. The idea of getting to be close to someone again and feeling connected had sounded wonderful, so I had of course told him yes. Both Linc and Krit had been around me enough to know if there was evil in me. They would have seen it by now and been disgusted by it. Both of them seemed to genuinely like me.

A knock on the door brought me out of my thoughts, and I looked up from my computer screen, where I had intended to write some of my book. The door opened, and Krit stuck his head in. His eyes scanned the room until they found me, and then he smiled. The smile that always made me feel like warm honey was running through me.

“You really should lock this door,” he said as he stepped inside.

“Why? To keep out the riffraff?” I asked teasingly, then cocked an eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. “Well, you left it unlocked and look what happened.”

I nodded and gave him a serious frown. “I can see what you mean. Maybe I should get an extra bolt,” I replied.

Krit grabbed his heart. “Ouch,” he said, then fell back into the chair, facing me. “That was deep, love. Fucking sharp.”

I rolled my eyes and leaned back in my chair. “You’ll survive. I’m positive of it.”

Krit propped up both of his feet on the coffee table in front of him and studied me for a moment. “Come tonight and listen to the band. We’re at Live Bay again because of a scheduling change this week. You can sit with Trisha. You didn’t get to hear much the other night.”

This was where us being friends was going to be difficult. Telling him I had a date with Linc to see a movie shouldn’t be a big deal. But for some reason it was hard to say so out loud. I didn’t want him to think Linc was more important, though I had a feeling Linc wasn’t asking me out again because he wanted just to be my friend.

“You have plans already, don’t you?” he said before I could come up with something to say that wasn’t awkward.

“Linc asked me to go to the movies with him tonight,” I admitted. I had no reason to feel bad about this. No reason at all . . . but I did. Dang it.

Krit let out a sigh. “Fine. He asked first. It’s all good. But Thursday night I’ll be playing at Live Bay, and I want you to come.”

Okay. We could do this. He was making it easy, and I was making it harder than it had to be. “Deal,” I agreed.

Krit nodded, but he didn’t seem happy. “You eating on this date?” he asked.

Linc hadn’t said anything about dinner. He’d just invited me to a movie. I shook my head.

Krit pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Good. I’m starving. What time is he going to be here?”

“Six,” I replied.

“That leaves us with two hours,” he said, and a smile had replaced his frown. “Thai or Italian? Or do you want to get those fajitas from that Mexican place again?”

He was ordering us takeout. I didn’t want to feel that squishy feeling in my chest that made me feel tingly. At least not where Krit was concerned. But oddly enough, he was the only person who managed to trigger that feeling.

“Not that hard of a question, love,” he said, reminding me that I needed to answer him.

I had bad memories of Thai food. “The fajitas sound good.”

“That’s my girl,” he said as he dialed the number to the Mexican place. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but I had never been referred to as belonging to someone before. The simple my girl meant more to me than he realized. In fact, if he knew how deep that struck with me, he would run off again—and this time he’d possibly never come back.