“You didn’t hurt me—”
“Tavi. I take care of the people I love. Period.”
Her hand freezes on my shoulder, her eyes going wide in the dim light.
Fuck.
I swallow—hard—but I don’t take the words back. “Tell me what I can do to take care of you. I have real Häagen-Dazs along with my favorite bakery cookies. I can make a call if you want a barbecue sandwich. I’ll read you a bedtime story. Scratch your back. Take Pebbles out. Run over to the church and get some of your chocolates. You name it. I’m here. All yours. Whatever you need to be comfortable.”
Her eyes are shining. “I do not deserve you.”
“Do we need to have this talk again? I’ll remind you as much as you need me to that you, Tavi Lightly, are a fucking awesome human being whodoesdeserve every good thing.” I pull her hand to my mouth and press gentle kisses to her knuckles. “Everygood thing.”
I don’t care what she wants. She names it, it’s hers.
She’s staring at me like she knows what she wants, but she’s terrified to ask for it, and after what feels like a lifetime, she looks away, straight at her privacy screen.
I glance at it too. It’s painted with shiny butterflies that stand out even in the dark, and it feels like Tavi. An elegant splash of brightness ready to flutter away at any moment.
I rise and peer around it. “No one there,” I whisper. “We’re alone. You’re safe.”
“I don’t trust that there aren’t more secret passages in this school.”
“Not in here. In the theater, yes. Cafeteria, yes. Gym and library, yes. There’s even a secret passage from the old English room up to the art room. But if there’s a secret passage intothisroom, I’m unaware of it.”
“Which English room?”
“First floor, girls’ hallway, second classroom on the left when you come in from outside.”
“Did you use them all in high school?”
“I did.”
“Does it bother you to be back in here? In the building?”
“No. I like the idea of being in detention with you.”
Her laughter is music.
Swear it is.
Maybe Hannah was never my one true love.
Maybe it was that I never realized, since high school, that I need to be friends with any woman I’d date, and Hannah was convenient because we were already friends, not because she was actually the one for me.
She stuck by me through my shithead years.
Never wavered.
I’m not so sure anymore that she never judged. That she didn’t get her own kind of thrill out of hanging out with Tickled Pink’s Bad Boy.
But Tavi—she thinks I’m a catch. Me. Not my history. Not who I used to be. Justme. Today. As I am.
She’s been around the whole damn world, met people in every corner of life, and shestilltells me I’m attractive and worthy and perfect just the way I am.
She believes in me.
“Sit with me.”
