“All those things Julia said about how you felt for your Kiss Cam guy; they weren’t lies, were they?” His hand lifts and touches the cuff of my sleeve. “You fell in love with me, didn’t you?”
“Well, that’s not exactly—”
He steps closer and my mouth stops working. Why should I deny anything? I want to tell him everything that happened, everything I felt and all the crazy things that happened all along the way, but there’s also this tiny nagging feeling that I shouldn’t.
“She said you looked for me everywhere. You both did.”
I nod, too afraid my words would betray my confusion, my doubt.
He reaches up and swipes a loose strand of hair off my forehead. “Let’s keep whatever is going on between us on the down low,” he says, quietly. “I don’t want everyone knowing my business, but I really think we should see what’s happening here.”
“What’s happening here?” I whisper back, stunned.
“I don’t know, Kiss Cam girl,” he says walking backward to the door, “but I can’t wait to find out.” He grabs his mug off the counter and raises it up to me. “I’ll see you later.”
What the hell just happened? What the hell did all of that mean? I rush out of the kitchen and back to my workstation. I need to focus on work and not spend my day picking apart each word and syllable the man spoke to me. I can’t translate any of it alone. Julia isn’t back yet, she’s supposed to come home tonight, but it’s not like I could talk to her about her ex-boyfriend, and there’s no one else I can go to without sounding desperate or pathetic.
I sit down at my desk and wheel my chair out into the pathway so Dex’s workstation is in my sight. His fingers are tapping away at his keyboard and his profile looks stiff and focused.
Something in my chest aches as I watch him.
From inside her office, Gail yells something and laughs, making him look up from his screen. When he sees me, he freezes.
The ache in my chest spreads out and tightens my skin.
We stare at each other awkwardly, until his expression melts and he’s on his feet striding toward me. “Hey, Nash.”
“Dex,” I say, looking up at him.
“Look, I need to get something off my chest and—”
“Don’t. Please.” I roll Julia’s chair over for him to sit in. “I know what you were saying last night. I’m not angry and I really don’t want to fight with you about any of this.” I smile as he sits down. “I kind of like our weird friendship.”
An amused smile cracks over his face as I talk, but he shakes his head as if he’s frustrated with me. “So, you and Nate? You’re going to pursue your friend’s ex-boyfriend?”
God, when someone says it out like that it sounds awful. “I’m not pursuing anything, Dex.”
“You could have fooled me last night.”
“I couldn’t just leave him that drunk to get home on his own, Dex.”
He stands up and leans his hands on the armrests of my chair. “You’re still holding onto the belief that he might be the love of your life, aren’t you? All because of that kiss cam? If that goddamn camera moved another foot over to the left, it would have me.”
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. “You don’t understand, Dex.”
“I don’t?” he asks, darting his eyes back and forth between mine.
“No, you don’t,” I say, standing up. “I have to see if there’s something more there. It was real, Dex. For my sanity, I need to see if this is the guy I was meant to be with. I don’t want to wonder about him for the rest of my life.”
He steps back, shoving his hands in his pockets and shrugs.
I don’t want to even begin thinking about why his stepping away hurts me the way it does. He takes another step and I have to look away. I don’t want to watch him walk away from me.
What the hell is wrong with me?
When Dex gets back to his cubicle, he leans back in his chair and throws his notebook at his wall divider angrily.
I bolt up, just as angry, and storm over to Gail’s office and pound on her door.
