Up in Flames(43)

It was ten in the morning. No one should be up and visiting me at ten in the morning. Didn’t they know I slept late?

I jerked the door open without checking to see who it was first, because honestly, this was Rosemary Beach, and we were safe here. Except from annoying guys like Major who were determined not to go the hell away.

“It’s early,” I said to him, unable to hide my annoyance. Had he not felt the lack of chemistry between us last night? We were as boring and uninteresting as whole-wheat toast.

“It’s time for your run. Want company?” He grinned, and I didn’t even think it was pretty anymore. I’d been ruined.

“Uh, well, I guess,” I replied, not knowing if I should just be a rude ass and tell him no or give him one last run and hope he got it that we were over.

He beamed and stepped inside. His gaze traveled down my red wrap and bare legs, then back up again, as if he was appreciating the view. “You look gorgeous first thing in the morning.”

Was he flirting for real? After last night’s awkwardness? “Thanks,” I replied, then turned to go back to my yogurt and juice.

“Got coffee made?”

Did I have coffee made? Was he still living in the last decade? “I have a Keurig, Major. I don’t have ‘coffee made,’ ” I replied with a roll of my eyes.

He laughed like I was trying to be funny and began looking for a cup. I let him search. He’d been in my house enough that he should know by now where the damn cups were. Was he seriously that stupid? “You’d think I’d know where they were by now,” he said in his happy tone.

“You’d think,” I agreed with annoyance.

He didn’t respond to my attitude or even acknowledge that I wasn’t being friendly. Which got on my nerves more.

“Are you just out to prove you can ruin whatever friendship we have left? Because I’m not sure why you keep coming around and trying. There is nothing between us.” There, I’d said it. He could put on his big-boy panties and deal with it.

Major put his cup down, since he’d finally found them after opening five cabinets. “Is that what you think? We have nothing left?”

“I know. There’s no thinking to it.”

He looked sad, but he was good at the sad thing. He used it to get his way. It also made him appear weak, and I didn’t like weak. I wasn’t weak, and I didn’t want to be around anyone who was. “I care about you. If you weren’t busy being so cold and indifferent, you’d see that we have something here. If we hadn’t had something then, you wouldn’t have been so hurt with me before. Now you just won’t forgive me and give us a chance.”

If that were true, then I could accept it and work with it. But he was wrong. Completely and totally wrong. “I was lonely. You came along, and I thought you being with me would fill that hole. It didn’t. You weren’t enough. You will never be enough. You’re weak, you love yourself too much, and you are self-centered. I can’t love that, and I can’t fill my void with it.”

He didn’t like that. The anger in his gaze was the first sign of strength I’d actually seen from the guy. “And you aren’t?” he asked, his voice a notch higher than normal.

“I’m not weak. The other things might be true, but I own them. I know myself. But you pretend you’re perfect. You think your looks make it OK to be all those things. You aren’t perfect. You’re annoying.”

He looked off balance, like he had no idea what to do or say to me. I was smarter than him. Another check in my corner. “You are weak. If you were stronger, you wouldn’t go searching for a man to complete you. That’s weakness, Nan.”

I let that sink in, because he was right. Score one for Major. “Then we’re just alike. Haven’t you heard that opposites attract? We are so alike we’d kill each other.”

There, let him argue his way out of that one. I wasn’t going to deny my faults. I knew them more than anyone. Once I’d made excuses for them, but I’d stopped that. I was getting on my own nerves.

I doubted he’d ever get on his own nerves. He’d go look in a mirror and fix his hair and admire his face and forget he had seriously annoying flaws.

“I’ve heard people talk about your coldness. I didn’t believe them when they warned me. I thought someone who looked like you couldn’t be that bad. You had to have something in you worth loving. But they were right. All of them, especially Mase. He told me there was a reason he didn’t love you or want anything to do with you. You’ve got ice in your veins, and no amount of beauty can fix that shit, Nan. You’ll die old and lonely. No kids or husband to love you. Because you’re a bitch. A raging, cruel bitch with so much bitterness you can’t acknowledge a good man when you see one.”