My phone buzzes again.
Brody
Outside.
Oh.
Okay.
This is happening.
Deep breath. Coat. Bag. Stairs. Oh—I spot my keys and toss them into my tote. I’m ready.
The Shelby idles at my curb.
Brody gets out when he sees me. Opens my door.
He’s wearing dark jeans, a sky-blue Henley under a black jacket, and he looks?—
Well, shoot. He looks downright delicious. When I catch my reflection in the window, I half expect to find myself with full-on Looney Tunes heart-shaped eyeballs. I mean…Awooga!
He looks like every book boyfriend I’ve ever fallen for. A real-life rom-com hero. He even rests an elbow on the door, leaning in that perfectly bookish-boy way.
“Morning,” he says.
“Hi.” Honestly, I’m surprised I managed that. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Of course.” He steps back, waits until I’m settled before closing my door and walking around to his side.
Very gentlemanly. Very “contractually obligated to appear like a good boyfriend” of him.
Oh, Chloe. We’re enjoying this too much already.
The inside of the car smells like leather and light cologne. It’s clean too. No crumbs in the seat cracks, no wadded-up McDonald’s wrappers between the chairs…I feel underdressed just breathing in here.
“So,” Brody says, pulling away from the curb, one lean arm passing over the other as he turns onto the street. “Ready for today?”
“Absolutely not.”Ope! Chloe!That was an inside thought.
He laughs. The warm, real sound does something terrible to my heart and fades too quickly. “Yeah, me neither.”
I glance at him. His shoulders are relaxed, a slight smile touching his lips. But his jaw’s tight. Hands gripping the steering wheel a little too hard.
I wonder for the first time how he feels about this whole thing. Is he nervous? He has way more to lose than I do. If we’re found out, I just lose money I’ve already mentally spent on rent and pretzel M&M’s. He loses his entire career.
No pressure or anything.
“Did you watch the games?” he asks suddenly. “Thursday and Friday?”
I freeze.
Okay, so here’s the thing. I wasn’tgoingto watch. Because watching him play hockey felt weird and invasive, like reading his diary or stalking his Instagram at two a.m., which Idefinitelyhaven’t done. But then Jessa came home Thursday night with Thai food and turned on the game, and I was going to say no, but there he was on the screen—all intensity and focus and athletic grace that made my stomach do this swoopy thing—and I wasriveted. Like, couldn’t look away, forgot to eat my Pad Thai, accidentally elbowed Jessa in the face when he got slammed into the boards.
And then he got benched. Just sat there on that bench looking like a kicked puppy, trying to maintain his dignity, and my heart sort of…broke?
But I’m not telling him any of that.
“A little,” I say.
