“Please... I need you... Love you...”
Love you?
Did... Did that word just come out of her mouth? TheLword. From Jocelyn’s lips?
Love you.
Sounds like music. Feels like silk. Tastes like candy.
Can’t be real.
“Youwhat?” I ask, trying hard to extract myself from her death grip. Don’t get far. She’s a ball and chain, holding me in place, but she finally detaches her face from my neck and looks up with entranced eyes.
“What did you just say, Jocelyn?”
She blinks twice. “I’m an idiot.”
Yeah. To that, I can agree. But that isn’t what she said, and a profound disappointment descends on my shoulders. Should never take declarations of love made in the heat of the moment seriously. What am I? Some sort of n00b? This is Relationships 101.
“I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening,” she says. Her voice is trembling.Actuallytrembling. “You—you just, like... spilled yourself out for me that night over FaceTime, and it totally unlocked me. Before that, I knew you were attractive. Objectively. After that, I couldfeelit—your pretty face and your beautiful soul.”
I almost laugh. “Oh, no. Notfeelings.”
She scoffs, still all trembly. Should I get her out of these soaked clothes? She has to be freezing. But I don’t want her to stop talking. Need her to keep talking until she saysthewords. The ones that matter.
“And then we had that stupid photoshoot.” Her scowl is quite ferocious. Must still be really pissed at that photoshoot.
I get it. That day was eye-opening in the worst of ways. “Yeah, that was rough,” I say.
Her expression softens. “I knew what was happening. I tried to convince myself I could make it stop.”
“Make what stop?”
Her icy fingers rise to rest gently on my cheek. “Falling in love with you.”
Someone’s turning down the oxygen again. Or maybe I’ve just forgotten how to breathe. I can’t move. Can’t look away. Can’t speak. I just... stare.
“That night, after the wedding, you dismantled all my walls. But then the next morning—I panicked.”
“I remember.” Don’t particularly want to think about that. Makes the lack of oxygen a touch painful. Must breathe at some point, though. Requirement for ongoing life.
Her eyes flutter shut. “I’m an idiot. I thought we could just ignore it. That I could rebuild my walls, and things would go back to normal, but it just—”
“Doesn’t work like that.” Air finally enters my lungs as I realize what’s happening. I’m getting a romantic speech. This is Jocelyn Mattox’s version of a loving confession. She’sPride& Prejudice-ing me, and her handsarecold.
This is fantastic. Like... truly phenomenal. Today has been a terrible shit show of a day, butthis.This is some sort of miracle. Akin to facing down a hurricane and surviving. I should play the lottery or something. The odds are ever in my favor.
She shakes her head. “I kept thinking I couldn’t love you because if I loved you and lost you, I wouldn’t survive it. But my heart didn’t really care about that dumbass logic. It just sort of tiptoed into your hand while I wasn’t looking. Flipped me the bird on its way out, too.”
I move a couple fingers to her chin, lifting it so she’ll open her eyes.
She exhales and matches my gaze. “It’s yours now. So... maybe, like... don’t break it, or whatever.”
Endearing woman. Look at her, being all vulnerable.
Then her eyes harden. “And don’t you dare fucking die.”
A snort makes the salt still coating my sinuses burn all the way into my brain.
