“I didn’t know what to say to you then.” He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me close. “So I did what I could.”
“Is that why Miles showed up with two black eyes the next day and never spoke to me again?”
When I glance up at him, his lip twitches, but he doesn’t confirm or deny it.
I flip through the next few pages, uncovering more drawings of me at school and on the island. They’re memories I didn’t even realize he captured. When I find one of us together, I pause to examine it more closely.
We’re sitting beside each other in the lighthouse during one of our spooky story sessions, and I’m bundled up in a soft blanket from the Vitale home. That night, I’d been disappointedbecause Michele grabbed it first, not realizing it was my favorite. When we got to the lighthouse, Romeo stole it back and gave it to me.
In the drawing, there’s a hint of a smile on his face as I look up at him like he’s my hero.
“That was the first time you ever spoke directly to me,” he says.
“Really?” I meet his eyes. “What did I say?”
“You always seem to notice things.” He smirks. “That’s what you told me after I got your blanket back. You just didn’t realize the only things I seemed to notice revolved around you.”
My stomach flutters as I turn into his hold. “I’d had a crush on you forever, and when you looked at me that day, I thought I was having a heart attack.”
“I could tell.” His warm gaze drops to my lips as he angles my head back to kiss me.
“You were always quiet.” My words brush against him. “I never had the courage to talk to you before because I didn’t think you liked me.”
Dry amusement darkens his voice. “You had no idea.”
He takes me by the hand and leads me to the club chair. When he sits, he pulls me onto his lap, settling me there so I can finish looking through the sketchbook. It’s been years, but our entire history is preserved between the pages. I’m fascinated by seeing our story through Romeo’s eyes, and I take my time with each drawing, studying the details.
“What was this one?” I ask, pausing on the image of me watching him draw on a napkin.
“It was the first time you smiled at me,” he confesses. “You were overwhelmed, so I drew something to distract you. It seemed to help.”
My heart squeezes in my chest, emotion clogging my throat as I nod and flip to the next page, noticing the date penciled across the bottom.
April 15th.
415—the numbers in his username.
“And this one?”
“That was when I knew I was in love with you.”
“Really?” I stare at the image of me feeding the stray cat that used to hang around our high school. It was the same year everything changed for us. “What made you realize it then?”
“One day, I sat there and watched,” he explains. “At least fifty other people walked past that stray cat and didn’t think twice about it. You were the only one who paid it any attention. I knew then that your soul was too pure for mine, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted you.”
I reach up to touch his face. “I’ve never wanted you to be anything other than who you are.”
He turns and kisses my fingers before he nips at them, making me laugh.
I glance at the drawing again and let out a sigh. “I always wondered what happened to that cat. It just disappeared one day.”
“It became a fat, lazy housecat and lived a long, happy life.”
“How do you know?”
Amusement sparks in his eyes. “I pawned it off on my cousin Pepe.”
“What else have you done that I don’t know about?”
