“You shouldn’t like anything about me.”
“Am I your polar bear?”
“What?”
“Your cause. Your mission. Right now. You being here. Am I your polar bear? Am I your melting ice caps?”
I shake my head.
One of his brows arches up again. I want to trace it with my finger.
And lick it.
Hooooboy, I’m in trouble.
“I can’t figure out your tell,” he says, “but this time, I know you’re lying.”
I can’t make my voice work normally. It’s uneven and throaty and I should absolutely not be talking. “You’re not my melting polar ice caps. You—you’ve needed a friend. This week.”
“You’ve changed.”
“So have you.”
He holds my gaze, and it feels like a lifetime hanging between us.
Hehaschanged. He’s bossy and grumpy and short-tempered, but he’s also kind and thoughtful and patient and funny.
Sometimes all at once, which shouldn’t be possible, but it is.
I bite my lip. I need to pull my hand out of his hair, but instead, I seem to be pulling his head closer to mine. “You’re not boring,” I whisper when I should tell him to back up, even though, again, I’m the one steering this dumpster fire of a ship.
His lips quirk up once more, and I’m done.
Gone.
Completely smitten with zero chance of a rescue.
“You’re not a complete disaster,” he murmurs back.
He’s wrong, but I’m still smiling as our lips touch.
Thisis a complete disaster.
And if there’s one thing I do in the face of disaster, it’s lean in even more.
21
THAT’S NOT YOUR BRAIN YOU’RE THINKING WITH
Oliver
Stop kissing her.
It’s the order my head is giving my mouth, but my mouth doesn’t want to listen.
She still tastes like pecan pie.
And that pecan pie was the craziest, sugariest, most terrible, most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.
