I believed him when he said he didn’t like seeing me hurt, but I couldn’t understand why. Aside from his innate goodness.
“Don’t be.”
Ward’s thumb stroked my knee, and I was back to not being able to look at him again.
“I…” I started, pausing to clear my throat when my voice cracked. “I umm. I want to tell you. About the video.”
Ward’s thumb stopped.
Obviously. I should’ve known it would have, and maybe I shouldn’t have been bringing this up right now, but I needed him to know.
I couldn’t have saidwhyI needed him to know, but I knew I needed it.
“It’s about twenty or thirty seconds long,” I said before I could lose my nerve. “Matt’s impression wasn’t bad. It’s dark but it’s obvious who I am, you can hear my voice, you can see me. I feel so stupid for letting it happen. As soon as I knew he recognized me, I should’ve walked away, but…”
“You didn’t know him?” Ward asked, and the confusion in his voice definitely wasn’tmeantto make me feel worse, but it succeeded anyway.
I shook my head. “No. No, he was just… just a hookup. I…”
Because I was apparently a masochist, I looked up at Ward then, meeting his eyes, facing whatever he thought of me head on.
“I was so lonely,” I said. “I’m always so lonely out here and I just wanted to blunt the edges for a little while, to forget for a couple of hours. I don’t do it a lot. I knew it was a risk. I took it anyway because…”
“I get it,” Ward said, thumb stroking again.
I could’ve cried over that tiny gesture. It meant so much to me that I wasn’t sure my heart wasn’t about to explode in my chest with gratitude.
“I mean, I don’t…get it, exactly. I’m not saying I’ve felt like that. I don’t understand what it’s like. But… I don’t think you should feel guilty about it. It’s not your fault someone else betrayed your trust. You’re allowed to have hookups. I’m sorry if I made it sound like… Jesus, I really am a precious little small-town boy, aren’t I?”
I laughed, but not at Ward. At the whole situation maybe, at the absurdity of it all, but never at Ward.
With a surge of courage, I laid my hand over Ward’s, sliding my fingers between his, heart pounding at the way it felt.
I hadn’t had a moment that felt this intimate in my life since…
Since I’d left Otter Bay. Since the last time I’d seen Ward, dropping me off at college. Since he’d hugged me goodbye and wished me good luck with tears in his eyes, fingers curled too tight around my arms, like he couldn’t make himself let me go.
I squeezed his fingers, and bit my lip, and wished I wasn’t too much of a coward to ask for what I wanted. Then and now.
“You’re themostprecious small-town boy,” I said. “I wouldn’t want you any other way. You don’t belong in LA and please believe me when I tell you I mean that as the highest possible compliment.”
“I think LA probably has one or two okay residents,” Ward said as the cab pulled up in front of my apartment building.
“Yeah?” I asked as he held the door open to let me out, like a real gentleman on a real date.
“You live here, right?” He grinned at me as he overpaid the cab driver. “I think you’re okay.”
“Okay?”
His grin was infectious, and I couldn’t feel entirely sorry for myself while it was turned on me. Even if he was calling me justokay.
Ward was so beautiful when he laughed. In the streetlights with the rain still coming down, but also in his soul. It shone through everything else—everyone could see how good he was.
My breath hitched as he grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward the building, pinning me to one of the columns out front.
“Think you’re pretty great, actually,” he said.
And then he kissed me.
