He listens when I tell him about Penelope, but I can feel something gnawing at him.
“I’m sorry for being an embarrassment,” he finally says. “Again.”
“You’re not an embarrassment. What brought this on?”
“I swear I wasn’t panicking,” he rushes on. “I was upset, which is fundamentally different. I just wondered why you were gone solong. Then I thought maybe everyone was whispering about me, saying I was having a meltdown. But I wasn’t.”
He seems very adamant about this.
“I know you weren’t.”
“So I thought I should write you a list. A catalog of all the ways I’m a burden to you.”
His leg is bouncing.
“Antonio.” My voice is soft.
“Ann-Sabrina sells notebooks and pens,” he explains earnestly, as if I were worried about practicalities. Then, quieter, “I’m sorry I let you down.”
He looks at me, eyes bright and worried.
“You didn’t let me down. You’ve never let me down. I’m proud of you.”
“You are?”
“So proud.”
I reach across the console and take his hand. “You did so well today.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. Do you want to know what people in Baywood are actually whispering about?”
“What?”
“How lucky I am. How much they like you. How funny and smart and fierce and loyal you are.”
He blushes, a pleased smile tugging at his lips.
“Really?”
“Really. And they’re right. You make me the luckiest man in the world.”
He leans back in his seat, his eyes closing as the tension leaves him.
“You are lucky,” he says. “But I’m pretty lucky too.”
He opens his eyes and gives me a smug look.
“I told Ann-Sabrina you’re my romance hero, and it’s true.”
For a second, the world stops. My throat tightens, and so does my grip on the steering wheel as I try to keep myself together.
He says it so simply—like it’s an undisputed truth.
I’m his romance hero.
I don’t deserve this kind of faith, but I want to earn it.
