Even though Charlotte doesn’t have an immediate answer for her, she does meet her there by opening up. “That means we’d have to go back to square one, again,” she softly voices her concern. “You already promised me once to go back to the beginning, to start from scratch, and it led us here.”
Riley smiles at her in a genuine, open expression. “I’m happy to restart this as many times as it takes. Because in case it still hasn’t gotten through your thick skull: I’m way too fucked up about you.”
“But why?” Charlotte croaks. “How… why, when did you know?”
“When I watched you shamelessly tell an entire room full of people about walking in on your friends fucking in your kitchen. I knew I had to make you mine. No matter how long it would take,” she admits, a shy grimace on her face.
Charlotte feels herself growing even weaker. Her mind goes back to that moment: it had been such an effort to get through the night, back when she’d still mistaken her attraction to Riley for annoyance, back when they’d both still go out of their way to get on each other’s nerves. That had been the moment she’d made Riley fall for her…? And she hadn’t even been trying?
“What about you?” Riley asks.
“Me? Who says I’ve fallen for—”
“Oh shut the fuck up, Charlie.”
Charlotte presses her lips together, but the tension in her body has built up so much that it leaves her mouth in an unfiltered giggle.
“I had my suspicions when you got under my skin so badly during our first meeting over coffee,” she snickers, trying to mold her face back into neutral. “But if you’re asking me when I…knew,knew?”
Riley nods.
“Just now,” Charlotte whispers, almost inaudibly, keeping her eyes locked onto Riley’s. “When you said the words ‘make you mine’.” I think… I think I want that, Riley.”
At first, Riley doesn’t respond at all, making Charlotte squirm. But then she inhales sharply, holds it, and the sparkle Charlotte has missed so much returns to her eyes. When she watches Riley being at loss for words, she inwardly pats herself on the back.
Her confidence rapidly turns into embarrassment when her own words repeat themselves in her head. “God, I sound like a loser,” she sighs, dropping her head into her hands. It makes Riley laugh.
“Way to kill the moment, but I’m not sure what I expected,” she says amusedly. “Though I feel like I have to tell you: the way you went through the entire range of a lesbian relationship in two weeks, you’d be an enigma in the queer community. You know that, right? Absolute top dog.”
Charlotte pinches an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I’m so glad you asked.”
Riley lifts her hand to count on her fingers, her smile brighter than the sun.
“Let’s start with the general concepts you got down: the denial, the libido, and the dramatics.God,the dramatics.”
Charlotte wants to roll her eyes, but she’ll give this moment to Riley.
“Then, more specifically: you went from kissing to fucking to not knowing how to stop pretty fast, you keep making me work for it, you blew my mind emerging as both a service topanda power bottom—”
“What’s a—”
“We’ll circle back to that one,” Riley says with a wink. “Next up, you’ve already gone on holiday with your date, which wasn't technically up to us, but I’m still counting it.”
Charlotte raises an eyebrow, silently asking if she’s done.
“And lastly, the dramatics.”
“You already said that one.”
“Did I? I guess yours deserve another honorable mention.” Riley snorts. “I could keep yelling in your face how deeply I’ve fallen for you, and you’d still wonder if I can stand being in the same room as you.”
For a moment, Charlotte narrows her eyes at her. Then, she relaxes, and her features transform into a lazy grin.
“You could yell what?”
“How deeply I’ve fallen. For you.”
