“Because it was obvious you didn’t like me.”
“I didn’tnotlike you!”
He looks at me skeptically.
“Okay, maybe IthoughtI didn’t like you, but only because you were so rude to me at first. I thought I was just making the feeling mutual.”
“How was I rude?” he asks, confused.
“You looked so disappointed that I was interning with you, and then you said something about us maybe being in different departments. I knew straightaway you thought I didn’t deserve to be there.”
His brow furrows. “Okay, I can see how that could be misleading, but I promise that’s not what I was thinking. I was worried that I’d be working with someone so distractingly pretty,” he explains.
“Yeah right!”
“I swear!”
“Ryan, there is no way that you were thinking that.”
“Harper, look where we are now,” he says, moving his face closer to mine so our noses are almost touching. “Like I said, I’ve wanted this from that first moment. Which wasn’t ideal when I knew I had to focus and do really well at this internship if I was going to get a job at the end of it. Trust me, trying to keep my distance from you has been torture.”
I want to believe him because it’s so lovely.
“Well, you managed it up until now,” I say with a smile, exhaling and turning onto my back to stare up at the ceiling. “And I guess we’ll find out soon enough if that focus landed you the job. It’s going to be weird, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Going back to the office after this weekend. Finding out whether one of us got the job; the other one having to pack up and leave when the internship ends on Wednesday.”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice low and sad.
“My parents are going to be so smug if I don’t get the job. I’m not sure I’ll be able to face them. They’ll be unbearable.”
“What are your parents like?” he asks curiously.
I hesitate. I was ready to change the topic, like I always do, but something stops me and for the first time in forever, I feel like telling the truth. Maybe it’s because he’s already been so vulnerable: he told me about his brother and that he wanted me from the moment we met.
Maybe it was his excited expression when I got back in the taxi at my parents’ house.
Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at me now.
Whatever it is, it makes me trust him. So, I tell him everything. He patiently listens, his brow furrowed, first in concentration, and then sadness and sympathy. When I conclude, telling him that I want this job so that I can show them that they’re wrong, he doesn’t do that annoying thing that people have done before and say he’s sure my parents are secretly proud of me deep down or anything like that.
Instead, he props his head up on his elbow.
“Screw your parents,” he says. “Want this job for yourself. Not for them. They don’t deserve any credit for what you achieve.”
In that moment, I’m glad I told him the truth.
And I don’t tell Ryan this, but I feel a wave of excitement for what might happen between us; what the future might hold. Because I know that this man is special and I’m not sure I’ll ever want to give him up.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I hardly sleep a wink that night at Ryan’s parents’ house. I can’t stop thinking about kissing him, the idea sending such a thrill through me that I toss and turn. I wish I could forget how he was looking at me before we said good night, or the fact that he’s just on the other side of this wall. At the same time, all I want to do is think about him, my stomach churning with butterflies.
I let myself remember what it was like, lying next to him in bed, feeling his strong arms wrapped around me, nuzzling his neck and smelling his skin as he held me close, safe and warm in our perfect bubble. I remember his face so close to mine on the pillow that our noses were touching and how he’d looked at me so intensely before cracking a smile, the crinkles appearing around the corners of his lips.
It may have been a long time ago, but those are details I’ve never forgotten, no matter how hard I’ve tried to.
