“Yom.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You can’t do stuff like this. You can’t act like a psychopath and make me feel stupid—I mean, totally delulu—for falling in love with you.”
Yom froze.
Those words.
Those words brought Yom out of his killing stupor and cleared his head.
“Lydia.” He stared up at her, his heart thundering in his chest. “You love me?”
Lydia
“You love me?”
I immediately, and I meanimmediately, tried to pull back.
But Yom clamped his large hands around my waist and asked again, “Did you just say you love me?”
Did I just say that?
Out loud?
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe.
But maybe if I froze and stood there with my mouth clamped closed, he would forget all about those words I didn’t mean to say.
That tactic worked for an entire three beats before he asked me, “Why do you not tell me you love me before now?”
“I don’t… I don’t love you,” I clarified—as best I could, considering that I was choking on my own spit. “I’m actively trying not to fall in love with you. Because you’re a walking mixed signal. Also, possibly a complete psycho.”
I finished that explanation off with another Black Hello Kitty wave.
And he finally let me go… to lean back and regard me with a heavily hooded and anime-nonchalant-villain-level skeptical gaze.
I did not last long under his silent interrogation.
“Okay, if we’re being honest, you’ve been making that really hard.” I took several steps back as the whole truth came rushing out of me like air from a slashed tire. “I mean, that kiss after your game and all the dinners and handholding. Don’t even get me started on that study haven—which just might be up there with Beast gifting Beauty a library in terms of, like, absolutely perfect gifts.”
“Beauty and Beast.” Yom rose to his feet and narrowed his eyes. “This is another Disney movie reference. LikeMulan.”
“Yes, it’s another Disney movie reference,” I practically yelled, waving my arms in total frustration. “The main point is, you’ve been giving me the total boyfriend experience without demanding anything of me. Plus…”
I circled my palm in the general vicinity of his perfect everything. “You’re all sorts of blessed in the face, and I’m sure you’re aware you’ve got a completely banging body. So yeah, I guess I’m in love with you? Or in Weird Anything List Stockholm Syndrome with you? Bruh, I honestly don’t know how to label all these feelings.”
I stopped talking abruptly, grabbing onto my forearm like an uneasySteven Universecharacter.
There.There. I’d said it. As best I could.
I stared sullenly at the floor, unable to bring my eyes up to see how he was receiving all of this.
“Lydia. Come here.” The flat command tone had returned to his voice. Maybe it had never left. Maybe I’d only imagined it sounded like he was getting emotional when he asked about whether Paul had ever hit me.
I didn’t move.
“Lydia. Come here to me. Now.”
“Why?” I asked, still unable to look up.
“You will not let me go back upstairs and finish what I started with yourublyudokbrother, so I am going to kiss you now. Again.”
