“Obsessively?”
“Strongly,” I offered instead, though he was probably closer to the truth. “But you were first…drawn to me because of what—and how—I wrote, and then by seeing me so frequently, like I did with your picture.”
Now. Now a smile, though just a tiny one, and tinged with a little sadness. I’d take it. “Well, it might have been a little reversed for me, if we’re being honest. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you from the first day of class. I didn’t read your first paper for a couple of weeks after that.”
“Seriously? ’Cause like you said, we’re being honest here.”
He nodded, still holding my hand to his chest, the warmth enveloping me from both his palm and through his shirt, as somehow our hands had slipped inside his sports coat.
“Seriously. From day one.”
“Not Lily? She’s the one every guy went for when we’d go to parties.”
He shook his head, the movement so tiny it was almost nonexistent, but I saw it. Felt it.
“Not Jane? Guys are drawn to her, though I don’t think they even know why. And the way she would flirt with you—”
“Not Jane. You, Syd. You.”
I could feel the lump in my throat as I swallowed, trying not to fall into his arms, to pull him close and bury my face in his strong chest. I wanted to get this out.
“So, yeah, that came first, withbothof us. The initial attraction from the writing and the physical. But, those first couple of days, on the phone, without seeing each other? That’s when I knew you were so much more than just the author of my favorite book.”
“Even though we were basically talking about my next book.”
“Were we? Really, that’s all? I remember feeling like I knew you so quickly, so intimately, and not at all as just someone with a book to write.” I flexed my hand under his, against his chest, and he flattened his more heavily on mine.
“So did I,” he admitted softly.
“And what we’ve become since?” I asked, holding my breath. “What we were?”
He seemed to be searching for a word, the man who could string words together so beautifully and effortlessly.
“Real,” I offered up to him. “It was…we were…real.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “You’re speaking in past tense,” he said.
“You put us in that tense.”
Another tiny nod, though his eyes never left mine. I tried to convey the depth of my feelings with my gaze, but knew my plain brown eyes could never let him know how much I loved him. Him the man, not the writer, though the two were inextricably connected.
“I know,” he sadly said. “But I think…Syd, I agree with everything you just said, and I’m glad you pointed it out. But…”
God, the dreaded ‘but.’ I knew this was not going to go the way I wanted it to.
But maybe it was going to go the way it needed to.
“I think that’s the tense we need to stay, for a lot of reasons. A lot ofotherreasons.”
“Okay,” I said, “I understand.”
And I really did.
That didn’t mean I could stop the tears from falling down my face and from doing what I’d wanted to do for the past ten minutes.
Hell, since I’d first seen him.
I burrowed my head into his chest, not caring that my tears were wetting his crisp white shirt, probably leaving mascara stains. He could afford a new fucking shirt.
