Damage Control by Elisa Adams

not just agreed they should stay friends? She snapped her gaze to his. “What are you doing?”
    â€œSorry. It was an accident.” His smile told her it was anything but.
    â€œYeah, right,” she muttered, shaking her head and trying to concentrate on her own menu. Focus didn’t come easily, since he made her lose her place whenever he touched her. And he kept right on touching her, pretending it was no big deal.
    â€œWhat? Are you doubting me?” He laughed, and she was glad the old Brian was back. The man she considered the best friend she’d ever had. The person closest to her in the whole world. Her work schedule didn’t allow for her to build close friendships, so to lose Brian would be to lose her anchor. Her lifeline.
    She nudged his knee under the table and raised her eyebrows at him. “Of course I’m doubting you. Would you expect anything different?”
    The waitress came by to take their orders then, so she never got an answer to her question. Brian just shook his head and threw her a look so familiar she had to grin. Though his touch still seemed a little too intimate at least he was willing to listen to her wishes instead of blatantly ignoring them.
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    As if the situation hadn’t been bad enough to begin with. Now he had to keep his hands off her, too?
    Brian nearly groaned at the prospect. Yeah, this was going to be a piece of cake . Not. She’d tensed right up when he’d brought up seeing each other. Hadn’t relaxed until he’d pretended he wanted to be friends. Now she looked lighter, happier, like a giant weight had been lifted off her shoulders . Shit. If that wasn’t a blow to a guy’s ego, he didn’t know what was. She didn’t want him again, and he had a feeling there was a lot more to her reasons than she was letting on. She must have hated what happened between them.
    How was that even possible? She’d come, hadn’t she? If not, she was damned good at faking it. He’d never had any complaints about his performance before. If she hadn’t been so responsive, he would have thought she was the one with the issues.
    Unless she’d faked those responses, too.
    He managed small talk until after the waitress brought them their meals, then he couldn’t take the suspense anymore. Not knowing what she really thought was becoming too much of a distraction. He cleared his throat to get Andrea’s attention. “Was it really that bad?”
    Andrea glanced up from her salad, a frown on her face, but it soon dropped away and she burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you even asked me that. You were right there with me, weren’t you? What is it with you men, anyway? No, it wasn’t that bad .”
    Okay, it was a start. Not glowing praise, but he could work with it. “But it wasn’t great.”
    She shook her head. Ran her hand through her hair in a gesture he recognized as nervous. “Brian, it was amazing. Incredible. Just because it can’t happen again doesn’t mean I don’t want it to.”
    Her face flushed a bright pink and she glanced down, letting him know she hadn’t meant to say as much as she had. He opened his mouth, ready with an I-told-you-so retort, but then changed his mind and clamped his jaw shut again. She was skittish enough already. No sense scaring her away. A surefire way to get her running in the wrong direction would be to rush her. He still didn’t know what he wanted out of this. How could he expect her to know? She was the one who had serious commitment phobia.
    Hold on. Her words registered and his thought processes came to a screaming halt. Had she just said he was amazing? Now that was more like it.
    Instead of telling her what he really thought about her hesitance, he forced a grin. “Cool. Hey, are you busy tonight? I thought we could get a pizza and rent a movie.”
    Her flush drained from her face, leaving