Summer looked up at Ace as his tone intensified, eyes widening a little. Apparently she’d accidentally ripped open a well of pain, and she put the necklace down to reach out a hand and put it on his knee. “I’m sorry,” she offered. She looked down, and back up at him. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Her own memories didn’t matter in the face of this. Yeah, Jesse had hurt her, expecting a kind of perfection she was never going to attain, but this — if they’d known each other longer than an hour she would have offered to hug him.
In exchange for his words, she said, “That person — that I was with, before — he … believed if you really loved each other you wouldn’t fight. And I’m … kind of a temperamental person.”
When her hand closed around Ace’s knee the first time, he stiffened, being snapped out of his own stupor by the simplest, most tender touch he’s ever been rewarded, a platonic action laden with something a lot deeper.
He swallowed, gaze lowering to the necklace she set on the table before them, and tried to meet Summer’s eyes, instead fixating on the curl of her lips.
“M’fine,” he muttered, his stare wavering as he fought to gain control of himself once again, because, of course, the eyes were indeed the window to the soul.
“See, they say opposites attract,” he started in a low voice, jaw set, “but I believe there has to be some type of common ground, if so. Something to make it all worth-while since they’re so god damn different from each other.”
Summer nodded encouragingly, squeezing a little. Ducking her head, she tried to catch his eyes, but he kept pulling them away. She’d never heard a more unconvincing ‘I’m fine’ in her life. He seemed so prickly, and then it turned out there was this well of pain.
“It has to be more than just lust,” she murmured. She drew in a deep breath, drawing back her hand. “Can you tell me what happened?” Curiosity was her besetting sin.