My hoodie is still stuck.
I yank at it, fighting with the fabric, cursing under my breath. One arm comes free. Then the other. I finally wrench the stupid thing off my head and…
Gavin's face is right there.
Panicked.
His eyes are wide, almost wild, and he's breathing hard, not from the exertion of carrying me across campus, I don't think, but from something else. Something that looks a lot like fear.
"We need to talk," he says.
Chapter 32
Third Act Breakup DENIED (...Or Is It?)
Gavin
Doc's face is right there, flushed and furious, glasses crooked, hair sticking up in seventeen different directions from fighting his way out of that hoodie. He looks like an angry kitten that got caught in a paper bag.
An angry kitten I'm desperately in love with.
Don't think about that right now. Focus.
"What the hell, Gavin?" He shoves at my chest, but it's like being attacked by a very determined chihuahua. "You can't just, you literally kidnapped me!"
"I know, I know, I'm sorry?—"
"Across campus!"
"I panicked?—"
"In front of everyone!"
"You were doing the thing!" The words explode out of me. "You were doing the breakup thing! The 'it's not you, it's me' thing with the rambling and the excuses, and I just… I got scared, okay?"
Doc freezes.
The silence stretches between us like a rubber band about to snap.
Say something. Please say something. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me you weren't about to?—
He doesn't say anything.
My stomach drops through the floor.
"Doc..."
He moves toward the door.
Nope. No. Absolutely not.
I don't even make a conscious decision. One second I'm standing there with my heart in my throat, and the next I'm throwing myself at the door like a demented starfish, arms and legs spread wide, fingers gripping the doorframe like my life depends on it.
Which it kind of does.
"Gavin, what are you?—"
"No!" My voice comes out way too loud. "No, we are not doing this!"
