Page 28 of Blame it on the Kiss
“I can’t pretend I didn’t see it.”
“Yes, you can.” She glanced at his profile. “Why does it even matter to you?” She knew the answer to that, didn’t she? Payton still mattered to him and he wanted to know more about her best friend. Make sense of a list that maybe surprised him? Payton hadn’t been the easiest person to get to know. There were days even Honor felt like she was pulling teeth to get her friend to talk.
“I thought I knew the girl I was falling for, but now I’m second guessing everything we had,” he said in a quiet voice. “Payton broke my heart and I guess a part of me is still trying to figure out why.” He wiped at some sand on his pant leg.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Honor whispered. She hadn’t agreed with Payton’s decision to cut Bryce out of her life, but the choice hadn’t belonged to her.
He cast her a quick glance. “I’ve been thinking. Helping people is my business. It’s what I do know. My clients have lists. Things they want to accomplish. And I help them achieve their goals. Helping you with Payton’s list would help me, too. It’s my chance to say good-bye.”
Honor choked back tears. Whether she liked it or not, she and Bryce had Payton in common and running away from him wouldn’t change that.
For several minutes they stared out to the inky, calm sea in quiet solidarity before Bryce broke the silence with, “There’s a place to hot air balloon not far from here.”
“Escondido. I know. That was the first thing I crossed off the list.”
“How was it?” he asked with genuine interest.
Honor sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Amazing.”
“Payton wanted to experience a birds-eye view?”
“We both did. She was afraid of heights. Even the thought of standing on a ladder freaked her out. But ever since we’d watched the movie Casanova with the scene of a hot air balloon ride over Venice, and I’d told her how much I wanted to try it, she wanted to work up the courage to try it, too.”
“Good thing you don’t share her same fear.”
“We were actually really different. I think that’s why we made such good friends. We complemented each other.”
She’d never talked about Payton like this with anyone else before and it was nice. After Pay passed away a general sadness fell over the town and by quiet agreement her memory stayed mostly in people’s minds. Payton’s parents moved to San Francisco to be closer to their son and his wife and life went on in their small beach community.
Bryce angled his foot so it touched hers. “Do you have a tattoo I can try and find?”
Knowing Bryce wanted to search her body for a tattoo put all sorts of dirty thoughts in her mind that should not be there. “Not yet.”
“Not yet as in it’s too soon for me to look? Or not yet you don’t have one?”
She worked really hard not to smile. “I don’t have one.”
He raised his eyebrows in question. She jumped to her feet. “We’d better get back to the party.” He’d already gotten her to say too much. Think and feel too much.
He put a hand on her arm to slow her speed walk. “What’s the deal?”
“No deal. Just done talking about the list. And I’d like to remind you to keep quiet about it. This is only between us.” She gave him a side-glance.
“I’m not going to tell anyone, but come on. Why haven’t you gotten a tattoo yet? That’s the easiest thing on there.”
“None of your business.” Did the guy ever stop with the questions? He should’ve been a lawyer rather than an agent.
He brought her to a halt by gently gripping her arm before sliding his fingers down to grasp her hand. “Come on. We’ve come this far. Don’t hold out on me now.”
His amiable tone combined withthatface was totally unfair. She hated the power he had over her. Hated that one look at him turned her into Chatty Cathy.
“I’m afraid of needles,” she relented. Her shoulders sagged.
“That’s a common fear,” he said without judgment. “Did something happen to trigger it?”
He stared at her and waited for more. Damn those irresistible eyes.
“When I was nine I had to give blood for some reason I can’t remember. The nurse couldn’t get my vein the first time so someone else came in. That person was worse. She had trouble too, and then panicked when I squirmed and she hit a nerve in my arm. I remember the pain shooting to my fingertips and I screamed. Ever since then I’ve been afraid of needles.”
