“The Kiss Cam,” he says.
“Oh, don’t do that.” I shake my head. “We were on camera. The whole arena was watching. I had to?—”
“You had to kiss him likethat?”
“I had to make it believable.”
His nostrils flare. “There was too much enthusiasm, and how your whole fucking body melted into him.” He crosses his arms, and his swollen hands disappear against his chest. “I watchedyou, Kendall. I saw you grip his shirt like you needed him to breathe. Could’ve fucking fooled me!”
I tilt my head at him, growing more frustrated. “What choice did I have, Pattycakes? Shove him away on live television? Blow our entire cover? He grabbed my face and went for it. I didn’t exactly have time to choreograph the moment or tell him not to stick his tongue down my throat.”
He glares at me. “What did he whisper in your ear? To make you react like that?”
I lick my lips and stare at him. “He said … ‘Everyone’s watching. Pretend I’m him, like you used to.’ So, I did.”
Patterson goes still, and I watch something shift behind his eyes as he processes what I said, and then he looks away from me. It’s confirmation that even Jamie always knew there was something swirling between Patterson and me, and he let it happen anyway.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“Did you …” he asks.
I suck in a deep breath. “Yes,” I whisper.
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I give him the space to think about that. I can see him putting the pieces together, rewriting history in his head.
“It was always you, Pattycakes. Don’t you understand that? This …” I point between us. “We werealwaysunavoidable. I knew that the moment we met. So did you.”
When he glances back at me, some of the tension from his shoulders is gone. Maybe I’m getting through to him.
“This fucking scares me.”
I grab his hand, and he doesn’t pull away from me.
“Uh … same. This isn’t the type of love a person survives losing. I understand that. The thought of losing you …”
I shake my head.
“It makes me crash the fuck out.” He chokes up.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” I tell him, and he wraps his arms around me.
His walls are crumbling, and he’s not trying to hide it anymore.
The silence stretches on, and then his voice comes out hoarse, barely above a whisper. “I think my problem is, I keep waiting for you to realize you made a mistake.”
I smile at him. “Did I ever tell you the reason I came back to New York?”
“For the commission.”
“For you,” I confess. “I begged the owner for that job, gave him an incredible discount, and used my dad so I’d get chosen.”
This makes him break into a smirk. “I knew it. Nepo baby.”
I smack his chest. “So what?! I’ve done incredible work. I deserved it even though it might’ve actually happened because of my dad. But I’d have done anything to be around you. When I was offered the contract, I told myself that by the end of the season, if we never connected, I’d leave the city and move on.”
“So, you hunted me?” he asks, pressing the inside of my wrist to his lips.
