“Actually, I prefer dark chocolate, and I’m so-so with hazelnut.”
“What do you mean?” Her brows were pinched together in puzzlement. “I thought it was your favorite. Am I remembering wrong?”
“No, you’re remembering right. But I just told you that because your favorites are mine, too. I wanted you to get them, so I pretended to like the stuff you didn’t like.”
It sounded dysfunctional when he said it out loud, but he’d been a teenage boy who wanted his girlfriend to get what she liked. If that meant he had to eat hazelnuts, then he’d eat hazelnuts. He wasn’t allergic or anything. They simply weren’t his preference. He would have chosen the caramel filling or perhaps the ganache.
Both of which were her faves.
“You did what? Why on earth would you do that?”
“Because I wanted you to have the ones you liked the most. It wasn’t a big deal,” Tate explained. “It’s still not a big deal.”
“But you told me tonight,” Cat argued. “Have you harbored a grudge all of these years?”
“I told you tonight because we said we were starting again, and I wanted to start from a place of honesty, especially as this was not a big thing. Cat, I was a teenage boy with insane hormones. I wanted you to like me and want to spend time with me. I didn’t think we’d be sitting here fifteen years later debating our favorite chocolates. It’s not that deep. But now I’m pissed at Cooper for getting these chocolates because it’s started an argument that I didn’t want to have tonight. I wanted this to be a romantic date.”
“You thought it was romantic to admit that you’ve been lying to me all of these years?”
Cat jumped up from the lounge chair, the blanket spilling onto the grass, and marched toward the cabin, leaving Tate sitting there like an idiot. He’d never seen her fly off the handle like that over such a small thing. Normally, she’d laugh about it, and they’d move on. Tate would give her a few minutes to cool off and then go find her.
What just happened here? What’s going on? Something is not right.
Chapter
Fifteen
What in thehell was she doing?
Cat had been having a lovely evening with Tate, and then she felt the need to pick a fight with him. It wasn’t even a good reason to be mad. It was a silly thing from their youth, and she should have laughed about it because it was amusing and harmless.
Instead, she’d overreacted and accused him of lying to her for fifteen years. If she were being honest, she’d have to admit to him that she didn’t really like to go fishing. She’d only pretended to because she’d wanted to spend time with him.
This was all happening because she was nervous and a bit overwhelmed. It was silly, of course. She’d been the one to kiss him, and yet, here she was acting like an idiot. Perhaps it was simply becoming more and more real. If they failed at this second chance, she would be heartbroken.
And not the teenage heartbroken she had been before, but a true pain inside that would take a long time - if ever - to heal. It meant more this time, and far more was at stake.
He’d done this incredibly romantic thing, and here she was pouting and acting like some spoiled child. He had to be thinkingthat maybe he should have kept his distance from the crazy woman.
If this all broke apart, she’d have only herself to blame.
Turning on her heel, she marched back to where Tate was packing up the portable movie screen. He’d already cleared their pizza box and paper plates and folded the blankets.
“I don’t like fishing,”
Geez, I’m a genius. That wasn’t what I wanted to say.
But she hadn’t thought it through before she’d returned. If she’d been smarter, she would have rehearsed something.
“Okay. That’s fine.”
Tate looked guarded, as if wondering where she was going with this. If only she knew.
“I mean to say…I don’t like fishing. And I pretended to like fishing when we were in high school because I wanted to spend time with you.”
Apparently, she’d said something funny because his smile widened and he was openly chuckling.
“Sweetheart, I know you don’t like fishing. You never liked fishing, and you were not fooling anyone. You didn’t want to touch the worms. You didn’t want to touch the fish. You gagged when we cleaned them and almost puked in the bushes. At no time did you ever appear to be having fun. Not one single second. Your declaration is not news, but thank you for telling me.”
