“Can you stop the car?”
“Why?”
“So we can talk! Jesus!” She waltzed by me and opened the door. She crawled onto the seat, pulled out the keys and tossed them a few yards away from us.
“Okay, was that necessary?”
“Had to make sure you weren’t pulling any more sneaky shit.”
I rolled my eyes, and my lips twitched. Damn it. I didn’t want to think she was cute and funny. I was mad! Upset! “Fine. Say your piece.”
She licked her bottom lip and blew out a long breath that sent my already frayed nerves haywire. It’d be real cruel for her to do this and end it, but I never knew with her. She was a wildcard, for better and for worse.
“I think... I love you too.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maddie
“Youthink?” he asked, those damn brows raising all the way up on his forehead. He stepped closer to me. His taut body seemed ready to pounce.
“Yes. I’ve never been in love before, so I think that’s what this is,” I said, my throat clogging with new emotion. This raw, unfiltered emotional declaration filled my soulwith a nervous energy. Matt swallowed, and his nostrils flared when I closed the distance between us. Standing near my car, the rain continued. We stood with a few inches between our bodies—his face a good foot above me—and I smiled up at him. My best friend. My confidant.
It all made sense after my brain wrapped around his yelling outburst. How insistent he was about not wanting to come with me on this trip and how weird he acted. My heart swelled, and suddenly, I had to touch him.
I ran my hands over his chest and shoulders, settling on his hip’s waist and pulling him into a tight hug. Hetrembledagainst me, and the same prickly feeling in my eyes started. I’d heard of people being overcome with emotion before, but this was so much worse. My breathing picked up, my eyes watered, my stomach heaved, and I couldn’t get close enough to him. Like if I left a part of our bodies untouched, he’d disappear. “Matt, Mattie,” I said into his chest, unsure what I wanted to say. Everything. Nothing.
He rubbed one strong hand along my spine and sighed into my neck. “I know.”
We stood like that for a few minutes before I pulled back and stood on my tiptoes. Staring up at him with his soft brown eyes taking me in, I kissed him. It was just a quick peck, but the warmth and electricity traveled to my toes.
We were over the fight, if that had even been a real fight, but I still owed him more. I cupped his face with my hand and trailed my finger over his birthmark. “I always kept you in this safe part of my mind, where feelings were unattainable. I’m terrible at relationships, and you’re the king of them. Those two never crossed because I needed the self-protection. I thought if I let myself think of you any other way besides my best friend Mattie, then you’d disappear from my life.”
“I tried to keep you separate too.” He gave me a half-smile.
“I might suck at this. Being in a relationship. I could fuck it all up,” I said, my tears spilling over for real this time. “However, I’d rather try than continue pretending like I don’t love you.”
Matt pressed a kiss to my temple before tracing his finger over my bottom lip. “You won’t fuck it all up. I know you.”
“Yes, so you know I’m flakey and too loud and—”
“Sure, but I love all that about you already.” He laughed. “We have to promise each other, right now, that we’re honest and open. If you have second thoughts—”
“I don’t have second thoughts, Mims. Not at all. For the first time in a long, long time, this feels as easy as breathing. Being with you. Maybe there was a reason for never really having a boyfriend or falling in love. Maybe it’s been you this whole time, and I needed to figure it out on my own. Or maybe, our timing was off.”
“I don’t care how or what or why. I’m fucking thrilled to not keep my feelings a secret anymore.” He picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “I love you, Maddie. Always have and always will.”
“I love you too,” I said, my skin humming as my words pierced the air. “We’re doing this. For real, huh?”
“Hell yeah,” he said, capturing my mouth as cheers broke out near the campsite. Becky, Alex, and all the other couples in the wedding held up their hands and hollered, and I flipped them off.
Matt chuckled, his deep laugh rumbling against my chest. He looked down at me with so much love in his eyes that my breath lodged in my throat. “What do you want to do?”
“Start a life with you,” I said, already picturing us going on real dates, not just lunches. God, we already did that all the time. Movies, lunches, dinners, brunches. Game nights, a baseball game. We had beendatingfor years, but now there was kissing and hopefully a lot more time being naked.
His lips twitched, but he jutted his chin toward the campground. “I meant now. You want to leave together or finish the hike?”
“Leave.” I pulled him into another kiss. “We have a lot of time to make up for and things to experience together. Like showering and sex in a bed.”
