“Why do you hate me so much, Beau?” I blurt. “I know I messed up when I left. I have regretted it every single day. When I came back, you were the one thing that I was looking forward to more than anything else, and you were so mad. I get it. You should have been mad. But every time I think we are getting close to being friends again, you start to pull away. I just miss my best friend.” My voice cracks as a tear rolls down my cheek.
“Jo, I can’t be your friend.”
“Why not? Is it because you are that hurt by what I did? Please tell me how to fix it! I’ll do anything!” It isn’t like me to beg, but fuck, I am tired of the back and forth.
“There’s nothing you can do to fix it!”
“So, that’s it? You just hate me forever?”
He rubs his hand over his face as if searching for the right words.
“Jo, I don’t hate you.”
“But we can’t be friends?”
“No,” he says. “I can’t be your friend.”
“Why not?” I cry.
“Because I’m in love with you!”
That stops me dead in my tracks.
“Don’t you get it, Jo? I have been in love with you ever since you kissed me in the fifth grade. I have had to watch you go from guy to guy and always wishing that it was me. But I was just a nerdy kid who was too scared to tell my best friend how I felt about her. Then, you left. And that hurt so fucking bad, but I didn’t have to think about you for ten years. You come back, and I think that I’m just going to stay away from you, but you’reliterally everywhere! And all of those feelings come creeping back in every time I’m near you. When I saw you with Jamie, it just reminded me of how being your friend means I’m always going to have to watch you with some other guy, and I don’t think I can do that. It’s too damn hard.”
He starts to walk toward the door. I’m trying to digest everything that he just told me, but it’s all swirling through my mind so fast, I can’t think clearly. While people have always told me that they thought Beau liked me, I never put stock into it. I was always just the mess who never knew which way was up. To think that Beau actually saw something in that mess of a girl makes me realize I don’t want to lose him. There’s one thing I know for sure–I am not going to let him walk away from this.
“Hey!” I shout, getting him to turn around. “You’re in love with me?”
“Yeah,” he says, looking utterly defeated.
“So, why don’t you do something about it?”
“What?” He starts slowly moving toward me.
“I said why don’t you come over here and do something about it? Beau, I kissed you outside of school the day that we met. I’ve been waiting fifteen fucking years for you to kiss me back.”
He takes a few long strides, making his way toward me. My heart is thumping in my chest as I wonder what he’s going to do.
Before I’m able to think about it any longer, he holds the back of my head, bringing me toward him, so his lips can crash against mine.
Oh my God.
Chapter twenty-eight
This is Everything
Beau
Ihave waited fifteen years to kiss Jo Lawson. In those fifteen years, I have gone through every emotion in the world when it comes to her. She has made me laugh, made me cry, and everything in between.
But this right here? This is everything.
Kissing Jo is like opening bottled lightning. All of her passion and intensity is poured into every move she makes.
I’m not entirely sure how we got here. Two minutes ago, we were yelling, and now, our hands paw at each other, desperate to grab on to anything within reach.
Her arms slink around my neck as she stands on her tiptoes, trying to reach me better. Pushing my hands under her ass, I lift her off her feet, and she wraps her legs around me. She feels so small in my arms, but I know holding her is the equivalent of holding a bomb.
