I tried to form a word, any fucking word, and nothing happened. I tried in English. In Spanish. In Portuguese.
All I came up with wasmapsosa.It was Korean. It meant oh my god.
Alex’s breath was soft against the top of my head. “Not just sometimes. Not just when I tell you that you annoy me or when you make me laugh or when you’re talking back to me. Always. More then,” Alex told me quietly. “Do you understand that?”
Of all the ways I could’ve responded, I made a fucking squeaking, choking sound in my throat.
But he spoke Gracie apparently because he said, “You understand.”
I licked my lips, my heart already beating so damn fast. “I mean, I’m pretty cool, and I think you care about me, but….” I swallowed hard, this whole thing feeling like a damn dream or something.
He always liked me?
I was never going to be alone again?
Those were big fucking words. The biggest fucking words.
Alex shook his head against my hair. “I thought for sure you’d figured it out by now since you usually get everything else by yourself.”
“Figured what out?” I asked, too focused on the feel of him right there, of the weight of his hand on my back.
“I gave you every clue I could think of.”
Turning my head just a little, I let my cheek press to the strange texture of his suit. “What clues?”
The hand on my back moved up and down. “I told you I didn’t end up at your house on accident. Told you my grandmother made it happen. I heard her tell you that we were supposed to meet before then.”
“Uh-huh.” Why did I ever think he wasn’t that warm? He was.
“I told you about Agatha and Robert. Alana has a husband.”
I put my palm on the solid wall of his ribs.
His whisper sent goose bumps up my back as he breathed the words directly into my ear. “We both know what my grandmother showed you.”
Every single part of my body stiffened, and it took me a second to say, “Right, and we both know you didn’t want to meet me.”
Alex’s huff of a laugh went right to my ear, just as nice as his whisper. “I know I didn’t word it like that.”
“No, that’s word for word what you said.”
The palm on my back moved until his fingers curled around my hip, and I felt his laugh.
“Fucker,” I said, muffled against his chest.
That just made him laugh more, made him streak his hand up and down my spine, with what felt like his fingernails gently following along too. His breath brushed my ear again. “We both know that you like being told what to do as much as I do. We’re almost the same person, remember? You wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told you we were supposed to be together, and you know it.”
He’d gone there. He’d really gone there. He was acknowledging it.
Another set of goose bumps rose along my back, on my arms, even my scalp felt funny. But I pressed my cheek a little tighter to the material of his suit as I thought about it for maybe three seconds. Should I pretend like he was wrong?
Or should I just fucking own it?
I knew the answer like I knew that I would do just about anything for this son of a bitch. “Probably not, but I might have come around.” I spent another three seconds thinking about it. “All right, you’re right. I would’ve thought you were on mushrooms, but I would have come around if I thought I had a chance in hell of maybe making it work. If I thought that maybe you would have been open to liking me a little, maybe more in the future. Do you know how many marriage of convenience books I’ve read, Alex? They’re my favorite. It’s not that crazy of an idea to me.”
It was the fucking truth too. I wasn’t about to deny it. Him liking me didn’t seem possible, but plenty of cultures had adopted that plan and made it work for them. It worked for some people.
And the fact that Alex looked the way he looked… and his heart was the way it was… really, nobody would have said no.
