“Did it?”
“Not for me, sweetheart,” I say, low and deep.Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you.
“Oh,” she mutters and adjusts her position so she’s sitting upright. It takes longer than I’d like for her to say something else but when she does she whispers, “Me either.”
“We’re still good friends, Natalia,” I say.
“Good friends who are in a relationship in front of my dads.” She chuckles.
“That too.” I laugh softly. “They still don’t know?”
She shakes her head. “Haven’t had the heart to tell them.They seem…less worried now that they think I’m happy and in love.”
“Are you?” I ask. She blinks, her brows pinching together, wrinkling her forehead. “Happy, I mean.”
Her expression softens after my clarification. “You ask me that a lot.”
“I worry about youa lot,” I say. “And I want you to be happy, Natalia.”
Her eyes soften, still giving me the barely-there, close-lipped smile. “I know. But I’m happy enough.”
“Natalia…”
“I’m good, Rowan,” she says with an unconvincing smile, her teeth grazing over her lips. “I’m good.”
She isn’t, but tonight isn’t the night to push it. I only want to be here with her, buy her snacks and watch a movie while having the privilege of being in her vicinity.
“You know I’d do anything for you, right?” I say.
The way she’s looking at me… “I know,” she breathes. “Thank you.”
I count how many breaths she takes as she stares at me, and I stare back through all of them—nearly ten breaths. Anymore than that I’m a ruined man. Okay, a manmoreruined.
“Should we, um” —I clear my throat— “go to the back and put the seats down to watch the movie now?”
“It started?”
“Yeah.”
Natalia nods, her eyes searching mine and her beautiful face glowing with something ethereal. “Yeah, okay. Do you have a blanket?”
“Of course I do.”
I kick off my shoes and climb over to the back, grunting from the struggle and earning a giggle from Natalia. “Help.”
She laughs. “How?”
I wince when my head hits the roof of the car and my bent leg cramps. “Push me, I’m stuck.”
“Well, you’re a giant.” She pushes her hands against my back to launch me forward with a hard, loud laugh. “You should know better than to climb in a car smaller than you.”
“I bought this car specifically because it was big.”
“Not big enough.”
I laugh and fall into the back seat. The song of our laughter overpowers the music coming through the cars speakers as the movie plays from behind us. I shift to lower one side of the back seat before I do the other, then I unravel the blankets as far as they can go and set out two smaller pillows I brought from home as Natalia joins me in the now-flat back seat.
I grab a pillow to put against the side of the car and lean against it. Natalia remains seated with her legs criss-crossed and eyes looking out the rear window. Flashes of color bounce across her face as she watches the movie, and I just watch her.
