Chapter Nine
MAE
“Why do you want to kiss me?” I heard myself asking.
My mind silently volleyed a question back at me. Really? You're going to ruin Rowan wanting to kiss you?
Well, yeah, I was. What we’d had before loomed large in my memory—the intensity of my crush on him when we were friends, and my worries he didn’t return the feeling followed by sheer joy upon learning he did. A few hot kisses and then feeling as if life had thrown a boulder at me. Emotionally, that is. I’d been crushed and ashamed and hadn’t known how to climb out from under the weight of what happened that fated night. No matter how many times I tried to remind myself Rowan had nothing to do with it, he was entwined in the dark memory because he was the reason I’d been there that night.
I opened my mouth to clar
