His smile was sheepish, guilty. “Would you hate me if I said yes?”
“What about that girl who was all into you? The other rep?”
His gaze clouded with confusion. “Who?”
“The perfect one. The pretty one. The... Logan.”
He laughed. “The Logan?”
“Yeah, what about her? Or your Tinder dates? Or whatever.”
“Listen, for the past ten years, I thought you were out of reach. I was trying not to be miserable. Logan and I went on a date or two years ago. We had a good time, but there wasn’t anything solid there. Certainly nothing serious. And yes, there have been other dates. But none of them went anywhere. None of them have mattered. Or worked out. You’re the one who matters to me. The one I’ll do anything for. The one I’m willing to seduce with glamping and vodka. Also, you’ve probably realized by now, that it wasn’t my first attempt.”
I threw my arms around his waist and laid my head against his chest. I couldn’t look at him. And I didn’t want him to see all the emotions playing out across my face.
It really hadn’t been his first attempt. But had he really wanted this all those years? I sucked in a deep breath before I passed out and decided not to push too hard on this right now. I had a thousand more questions and a thousand more pieces to put together. But for right now, this was enough.
Because here we were. Just him and me and more than a decade of time to make up.
I tipped my head back so we could look each other in the eyes. “Okay,” I whispered, my heart soaring, butterflies racing, my whole soul bubbling and fizzing like a popped champagne bottle. “Okay, this is happening.”
He cradled my face, his thumb rubbing a line over my lower lip. “It’s been happening.”
I smiled at him. “But I thought it was a mistake before. Like we accidentally just kept making out. Now I know. You’re in this. I’m in this. It’s happening.”
He smiled back, and it was radiant and so happy. “Yes, it is.”
“So what now?” I asked, trembling with nerves.
His eyes shifted to that heated blue. “Want to go back to my place?”
I nodded. Yes. Yes, I did. “Please,” I whispered.
He took my hand and led me to his parked car. It was a short drive to his apartment, but my mind didn’t stop replaying all that he’d just said. This was on purpose.
We were on purpose.
And now we were headed back to his apartment? I gulped. Not sure if I was ready for this. Not the physical aspect of our relationship, but that right there... this relationship.
I had been astonished by his actual interest in me. I’d spent so long denying I had any feelings for him and shoving whatever emotion surfaced back into a tiny box that I didn’t know how to process what I was currently feeling. Or what he was currently feeling.
But the thing I was most afraid of was just how much I felt for him. Now that he’d given me an inch... my heart wanted to take a whole damn mile. A whole marathon worth of miles.
I had this full decade of caring about him. Even if I’d pushed the more-than-friendship parts down into the desolate places in my heart. Or into the friend zone I was struggling to shake off with little luck.
But we weren’t starting this... whatever this was... like two normal strangers who had to build feelings for each other and fall slowly in love.
No, I was already there. I had been there for as long as I could remember.
“...none of them have mattered. Or worked out. You’re the one who matters to me. The one I’ll do anything for.”
And maybe, just maybe, Jonah was there too.
seventeen
We walkedinto his apartment holding hands. He managed to unlock the door with my hand still in his. He seemed reluctant to let me go, even for a second.
My heart thumped wildly against my breastbone, unable to believe this was happening. That Jonah and I were... whatever this was.
