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looked up. Stephen stood behind me. The familiar ache started in my chest, but this time I kept the tears at bay.
    “I’ll get out of your way,” I said, grabbing something blindly and stepping back.
    “You’re not in my way.”
    My eyes met his, and I bit down on my lip. He had dark circles and at least three days of stubble on his jaw. My hair was thrown up in a messy bun from hell and I didn’t have on concealer, so I’m sure I didn’t look much better.
    “I’ll see you later,” I mumbled.
    "Taylor wait." His hand touched my arm and I gasped. He pulled back and I felt the loss down to my bones. "I wanted to apologize for how things happened the other day. That’s not how I wanted it to go the first time we talked. Well, I wanted the sex to happen, I'm not going to lie. I wanted us to rationally sit down and figure shit out, but I couldn’t help myself and things got out of control.”
    I blushed and ducked my head. “Don’t worry about it, Stephen.”
    “Are you okay? How’s your cheek?” He raised his hand as if he was going to touch my face, but he stopped. I could tell he was mentally chastising himself.
    “I’m fine.”
    “Baby, I know when you say it’s fine, nothing is actually fine. You use that phrase to push me further away, and I'm done letting you do that.”
    I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath at his nickname. I wasn’t ready for that, for him, for any of it. Taking another step back, my gaze caught his as I reopened my eyes. His hand was reaching out to steady me, but if he touched me again I would fall apart in the middle of this stupid fucking store.
    “I need to go.”
    “Taylor, please.”
    “I’m fine, Stephen. I can’t do this right now.”
    “Taylor—”
    “Stephen, standing here with you is killing me. Is that what you want to hear?”
    He tugged me off to the side and wrapped his strong arms around my body. I laid my head on his shoulder and took a few deep calming breaths.
    “Baby, that’s not what I want at all. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for everything.”
    “You told the truth, and I can’t be mad at you for that. You have every right to be mad at me. I get it. But I can’t do the back and forth, Stephen. We can’t keep hurting each other like this.”
    “God, we’re right back in the same place we were when you first came to California, aren’t we?”
    “We tried, Stephen. You did at least. I’m sticking around for Violet and Harper, but don’t feel like you have to—”
    “Don’t say another word. I want us to work through this.”
    “How can we?” I whispered.
    “One day at a time. We both need to learn to trust each other again. I'm not going to let you ignore what's between us.”
    His lips crashed down on mine and I fisted my hands in his shirt. The feel of his muscles under my fingertips was the best kind of torture. I missed this amazing man and no matter how horrible of an idea it was to kiss him, I was going to do it. His tongue teased the seam of my mouth and I opened to him. I shivered as he showed me just what I had been missing. For a few seconds we forgot where we were.
    “Fuck,” he said pulling back. “We can’t do this here.”
    I ducked my head. “We shouldn’t be doing this at all.”
    He ran his hand down his face and then kissed my forehead. “Baby, I just meant that some idiot with a camera would catch us kissing and send it in to TMZ.”
    “Nothing is settled between us. We can’t just try to solve everything with sex. That worked out so well last time didn’t it?”
    The sight of his sexy smirk did things to my insides. “I thought the sex was fucking amazing. It was just my afterglow that needed some work.”
    Despite my dark mood, I chuckled.
    “There you are. I’ve missed my girl.” He ran his fingers along the side of my chin. “Go to dinner with me. Let me apologize for being such a dick.”
    I nodded, and he squeezed my waist. Stephen grabbed a half-gallon of milk and threw it into his