One extra second, and I don’t get hit by a truck.
I don’t go to Ephron University.
I don’t meet Jenny.
I don’t meet Maddie.
Ten minutes at a diner where I swallow my pride and bumble around the girl of my dreams, and maybe this would have been how we spent every Friday night.
“Anyway.” She snuggles further into me. “It’s not like he was wrong. I was pretty cute then, but cute and soft only get you so far.”
“You were perfect. You know what I said when I first saw you?”
“At the party? I've got nothing if it’s not the word ‘no.’”
Shit, so I said that out loud then.
“Not at the party. That’s the first time we met, but the first time I saw you was at your apartment. I was studying with Jenny, and you were making tea in the kitchen, oblivious to my existence. But fuck Maddie, I sure the hell was aware of you. Every single one of your movements, I watched you so fucking gone already, and the words “holy shirtballs, that is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen’ fell out of my lips.”
“Is that really what you thought?”
“Would I lie about saying the word ‘shirtballs’?”
Her lip quivers. “But you hated me. You wouldn’t even shake my hand when you saw me. You said ‘no.’”
“I wasn’t saying ‘no’ to you, Buttercup. I was saying ‘no’ to what I wanted to do to you.”
I hear her throat work. “What did you want to do to me?”
“I didn’t even know you, but I wanted to tug you close and kiss you so hard you’d forget your name, and that terrified me.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
“Please.”
“The first time I met you. I wouldn’t have minded.”
Chapter eighteen
Santa Clause is Comin' to Town
Maddie
“Youokay,Buttercup?”Greeneyes sparkle with power hovering over me as the world’s most kissable bee-stung lips curve into a smug, satisfied smirk.
Ass.
Hell, I love this man.
Seth hasn’t left my side since the flare started. Making me breakfast in the morning, lunch, and dinner, making me copious amounts of tea, and holding my hair when the pain is too much, and I find myself with my head in the toilet. Even Connor’s warming up to him after how wonderful he’s been for the last three days.
And I have to admit; for someone so keen on never having anyone see this side of me, it’s pretty fucking fantastic to have someone rub my back when I’m sobbing through a mercy-kill stab or wrap me up in his arms when I get a cold flash.
Today, I’m finally feeling better, so I started this whole make-out session as a thank you, but it quickly turned into Seth dominating the situation like he always does.
Which is the worst.
In the best kind of way.
