Free She's the One: COunting on Love, Book 1 by Erin Nicholas Page B

“It’s fine. I don’t want you to stay if you don’t want to.”
    “I don’t want to,” he said honestly. “The mood got lost somewhere along the way.”
    “You didn’t want to go to the club in the first place,” Amanda said. “And then I shocked you, right? You didn’t think I had all of that in me?”
    He hadn’t analyzed when the mood change had actually happened, but now that he paused for a moment, he knew exactly what had done it. “It wasn’t about the club, exactly.”
    “Was it Jennifer?”
    “Not really.”
    “Was it what I said about Emma?”
    He shook his head. “Not exactly. I didn’t like that, but it was more…” He wasn’t sure if he should say it.
    “What, Ryan?”
    He sighed. “It’s that you clearly don’t respect me. And I didn’t realize that mattered. But turns out it does.”
    She stared at him. “Why do you think I don’t respect you?”
    “Because tonight, the club, me—it’s all stuff you would never normally do. It’s all stuff you frown about your sisters doing. And you were surprised to hear that I have conversations with the women I go out with, that I get to know them, even do things with them that don’t involve getting naked. I…” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I guess I don’t want to fit into the mold you’ve created for me.”
    Amanda didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t swallow.
    “Good night, Amanda. I’ll see you around.”
     
     
    The door shut behind Ryan and Amanda finally let out the air she’d been holding. Then she deadbolted the door, shut off all the lights and went straight to the bed. She slipped out of her dress and slid, naked, between the sheets. Once her head hit the pillow, she covered her face with her hands and let Ryan’s words replay in her mind.
    Oh, God.
    She was such a bitch.
    She’d been living her life for so long so as not to embarrass anyone she cared about, and then she went and embarrassed herself big and bad. And with a guy that she would see again. A guy who knew her brother.
    And she’d told him about Coach.
    Oh, God. Why had she done that?
    But she knew instantly—she hated the idea that Ryan thought she was an unreasonable, judgmental bitch, so she’d tried to make him understand.
    She flopped over onto her stomach, glared at the clock and decided not to waste the perfectly good hotel room—hot sex with Ryan or not.
    But an hour later when her mortification had failed to fade, she realized that she would need to make it up to him somehow. And an hour after that, she thought maybe she knew the way.
    Four hours later, she was awake again. Not happy about it, but unable to reverse it.
    So she got up and showered, dressed and tried to figure out how to see Ryan again. She knew where he worked, of course. But finding him there would be difficult without her brother knowing about it and wondering why. She didn’t know where he lived, and didn’t have his phone number.
    But Emma did.
    Dammit.
    Emma would know exactly how to get a hold of Ryan. In fact, it seemed that they were friends on top of being a past hookup. After Ryan’s clear offense the night before at her surprise over the friendship, she knew she should probably feel bad about not knowing he and Emma had been more than a one-night stand. But in her defense…how would she have known that? Emma never talked about Ryan in any way other than to say that he was amazing and had kept her up all night and that he’d likely ruined her for other men.
    Really, what was Amanda supposed to think after all of that? Why would she have assumed that all they’d done was skinny-dip?
    But she’d clearly hurt his feelings. So she needed to make it up to him. Somehow.
    So to get the information from Emma, Amanda would have to tell her what had happened.
    And it was Sunday morning. Emma was doing what Amanda was supposed to have been doing that day, which meant Emma would be at church with their mother in about an hour.
    Church.
    Hmmm… She couldn’t