Ever the damned gentleman. But there was no time to argue.
I opened my door, just as I was told, and I tried to throw myself out. But in all the strangeness, I’d forgotten my seat belt. Which turned out to be a good thing. Because no sooner had my seat belt clamped me back into place than my car door slammed itself shut and then crunched inward as we crashed sideways into the trunk of a tree.
Wow. Where had that tree come from?
I hadn’t even registered it all before Walker had lunged across the seat to work my seat belt to get me out. “You’re fine, right? You’re not hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. “I’m not hurt.”
As Walker worked his hand under the crumpled door to find the seat belt release, his face was very close to mine. Closer than it had been since ... well, since the crazy night all those years ago when he’d kissed me ... and kissed me ... and kissed me.
To be clear: He wasn’t kissing me now. Different vibes.
As soon as the seat belt popped, he was manhandling me and twisting me, anchoring his arm around my rib cage, and then yanking us both backward out the driver’s side door—with a force so hard we wound up tumbling into the fresh snow—landing on our backs, side by side, like we were about to make snow angels in the powder.
We took a second to process. And breathe.
“That was close,” I said, meeting his eyes.
“I almost killed you just now,” Walker said, standing up, dusting off, and reaching down to help me do the same.
“Thestormalmost killed me,” I corrected as he pulled me up in front of him. “Or maybe the car. Or the tree.”
“But you’re okay, right?” Walker needed to confirm again, brushing me off and holding me in place by the shoulders to inspect me. “You’re not hurt?”
Oh, this was mean. He was doing it again—taking in the sight of my face like he cared. And for a second, I swear, as his eyes lingered over my mouth, he seemed like he might, impossibly, against all reason and laws of physics, be thinking about kissing me.
Guess I wasn’t the only one who remembered.
But I scolded myself for that thought.
This was exactly the problem with me. This was what I’d stupidly done our whole lives: crafted a one-sided love story for us out of pure wish fulfillment into a tale so irresistible that even I believed it. This kind of nonsense, right here, was exactly how I’d spent my whole childhood imagining that he loved me back.
Hadn’t hejust saidhe was the last person on earth I could date?
And, more importantly, hadn’t he also said it—loudly, cruelly, in no uncertain terms—in front of our whole high school class?
Madness.
I must have a head injury or something.
I was just a delusional nerd standing in a freak spring snowstorm with the boy who’d never loved her.
Walker didn’t kiss me then, of course. I wasn’t even done rolling my eyes at myself before he was dragging me around to the back of the rental car and popping open the trunk.
I stood, shivering in my jeans and T-shirt while he rummaged through his duffel bag.
“Why did you bring two duffel bags?” I asked. “Plus a carry-on! We’re only here for a weekend.”
“Supplies,” he said, like two massive bags were perfectly reasonable.
“Don’t normalize your overpacking.”
He glanced at my carry-on-size suitcase. “Better that than underpacking.”
“I disagree.”
“You’re going to go through life never having enough.”
