So very, very serious. “Bea.”
My pulse kicks into overdrive. “Yes, Simon?”
“I called you my girlfriend while we were attempting to rescue you today.”
Swoon, my vagina sighs.
Shut up, he’s breaking up with us, I tell her.
Because I know how this goes.
He doesn’t want to date anyone.
He’s leaving in a little over a month.
We’ve hardly had any time for thewith benefitspart of our friendship deal, even if I feel like I know everything about him with how much we’ve texted.
I know when the jig is up, and folks, this is definitely the end.
A slice of my heart screams in agony, and I slap on my best poker face.
“People say things,” I say with a shrug.
Like it’s not a big deal that he misspoke.
Like I won’t go home and sob into my pillow.
Because I’ll miss him.
Simon Luckwood is everything I ever could’ve wanted in a boyfriend. He can carry on conversations for hours. He’s funny and he makes me happy. He doesn’t have anything to gain from dating me—not his reputation, not a financial benefit, not inspiration for his next business venture—and so of course, I knew this moment would come.
With him staring at me so seriously as the sunlight fades from the sky, the same night insects that were chirping away the night we had sex on the grass beginning their music again, the perfect evening cookout making my belly content even while my heart is cramping.
He wanted to give me one last meal and make sure I’ll survive before he pulled the plug.
“But I would very much like to be your boyfriend,” he says.
The fake smile I’ve been holding on to in the face of our impending breakup cracks in two, and I squint at him so fast that my brain almost cramps. “What?”
“I had no intentions of developing feelings for you beyond friendship, but these past weeks of getting to know you, spending time talking and working at your burger bus, meeting your family, beingwelcomedby your family, and then today, when you were trapped and I was helpless to get you out fast enough—being your friend is not enough. And it’s bloodyterrifying because I don’t do relationships, but when faced with a choice of having you as something more in my life or cutting things off completely, I—I cannot let you go. You mean entirely too much to me. Unless, of course, you wish to go. Then I suppose I will somehow get by.”
“Oh my god, I thought you were breaking up with me,” I gasp.
It’s exactly what a woman shouldnotsay in this situation.
But this is Simon.
Simon, who’s now giving me a wry smile that’s still tinged in vulnerability. “I daresay that may have been the easier choice. But sadly for me and my very exposed heart, it’s not the choice I made.”
“Simon,” I whisper.
“If you intend to turn me down, please do it quickly.”
My heart twists. I don’t want to turn him down. Iwantto be his girlfriend. Iwantto have more reasons to see him. I wanthim. But— “You’re leaving in a month-ish.”
“Not forever. This is home until the boys have gone on to university or whatever they choose after high school. And I’d be more than happy to provide transportation for you to come and visit me when I’m unable to leave the set for too many days in a row.”
My pulse is creeping higher.
