Spectacular Rascal: A Sexy Flirty Dirty Standalone Romance by Lili Valente

think? With all the flirty notes and texts and staring at my ass like it was your job every time we ran?”
    I fight a smile. “Yeah, well, your ass was—and is—a hard thing to look away from. I’m only mortal.”
    She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, you definitely sent conflicting signals, and a clean break probably was for the best.” Her smile fades as she reaches out to spin her next shot in a slow circle on the counter. “But it was also weird. And sad. You were such a big part of my life, and then suddenly you were gone. Like you’d never really been there to begin with.”
    “I was there,” I say, feeling like shit. “But I was also twenty-two and full of myself and dying to get out in the world and do things.”
    She spins the glass faster. “And I was just another girl.”
    “No. You weren’t.” I want to reach out and take her hand, to still her fingers and thread them through mine, but I haven’t earned the right to touch her like that. Not in private, when it would mean something more than a show put on to make another man jealous.
    “You were just…complicated, and I wanted simple. I needed it,” I continue in a firmer voice, as her lips twist in a knowing smirk. “Things weren’t great with me and my dad at that point, either. He was really fucking disappointed in me, and every time I called to check in, he let me know it. So I stopped calling him or anyone else. I tossed my cell and travelled around Asia studying with artists I respected, and by the time I came back home, college seemed like another world. One I remembered with a smile, but…”
    I chew my bottom lip, hunting for the right words. “By that time I’d learned to give fewer fucks about everything, and that meant not wallowing in regret over shit I couldn’t change.”
    “So you regretted how things ended?” Her fingers pause in their relentless spinning.
    “I did.” I lay my hands on the counter near hers, almost close enough to touch. “I should have called. Or texted. Or at least written an email to let you know that my decision that night truly had nothing to do with you. It was all me.”
    She laughs, a breezy giggle that surprises me after the heavy tone of the conversation so far. “Well, shit. That sucks, Aidan. I’m glad you didn’t call, then.”
    “Thanks,” I say, scratching my beard.
    “Seriously, that’s the worst. The one time a guy said that to me, I almost punched him in the face. I settled for dumping a glass of wine in his lap and telling him my decision to do so had everything to do with him.”
    I shrug. “Then I guess it all worked out for the best.”
    “I guess it did.” She lifts her chin, meeting my cool gaze with an even cooler one. “But I’m going to make my second confession anyway. There was never any Mr. Unattainable. Well, there was, but he wasn’t a friend from boarding school. He was you. You were my Archie of the Covenant.” She presses her lips together, turning her laughter into a wry hum. “I had it so bad for you, dude. So, so bad. It was fucking ridiculous.”
    “Why was it—”
    “Forgive me, friend, for I have sinned.” She plucks her shot from the counter, holding it between us.
    “There’s nothing to forgive,” I say, my gut twisting. I feel bad for my part in leading her on when we were younger, but that’s not why I feel like I swallowed a pound of buckshot. There’s something more, something that lingers in the air between us as she brings the glass to her lips, something that reminds me of good food going to waste and kids being diagnosed with cancer.
    “Say your part,” she says in a husky voice. “And drink.”
    I take my glass, meeting her gaze over the rim. “I absolve you in the name of the fox and the hound and the brew that never lets them down.” We drink, neither of us looking away, even when we set the glasses down hard on the counter.
    This time, we don’t reach for a lime.
    “Seriously, Red, I’m not as dumb as I look. After the