“Anytime,” he answers. I’m surprised he could hear me.
He takes a tentative step toward me, letting the door swing shut behind him, and holds out my jacket. Man, I’ve missed him. So much it’s almost a physical ache. I want to run to him, throw my arms around him, bury my face in his neck, and inhale him. Then drag him back to my dorm room and not come out until next semester.
But we’ve got some serious stuff to sort out first. Besides, I’m a mess of nervous knots, and I’m not sure these shaky legs are up for running right now. So instead, I stand slowly and approach him with caution, afraid my knees will give out at any moment and I’ll wind up falling at his feet, literally and figuratively.
Our fingers brush as I take the jacket from his outstretched hand and put it on. I’m instantly warmer even before I zip it up, but whether that’s thanks to the coat or the heat racing from where he touched me, up my arm, and into my body, I don’t know.
“Better?” he asks. His voice sounds strange too, tentative and uncertain. This isn’t the confident, take-no-prisoners Adam I’m used to, which only serves to make me want him even more, if that’s possible.
I try to answer his question, but need and nerves make it stick in my throat, and I settle for nodding my agreement.
Hannah pops up out of her chair and dusts her hands together like her work here is done. “That’s my cue to leave. Play nice, boys.”
She gives us both a saucy smile before setting her sights on Adam, pinning him with a warning, be-on-your-best-behavior stare. “And try not to screw this up.”
With that parting jab, she goes back inside, leaving Adam and me alone. He gestures awkwardly to the chair my sister vacated. “Okay if I sit?”
“It’s a free country.”
I make my best attempt at an indifferent shrug, not quite willing to let him know I’m more than halfway ready to take him back even before he’s started groveling. Nothing wrong with making him work for it a little, right? A guy doesn’t want to seem too eager. Or too easy.
He sits, and so do I. Then he takes a deep breath and lets it out in a long, slow hiss. “So here we are again, back where it all started.”
“Didn’t it start in the registrar’s office?”
He grimaces. “I was an ass that day.”
“I wasn’t much better,” I admit.
“How about we agree to pretend it never happened? I like to think our meet cute was the night you helped me pick out a gift for my mom.”
I can’t stop a so-not-sexy snort from coming out. “Meet cute?”
“Don’t laugh,” he says, contradicting himself by doing exactly what he just told me not to. It’s good to hear him laugh again. See the corners of his lips curve into a heart-fluttering grin. Even better to be the guy who put it there. “You’re the one who got me reading romance novels.”
“Novels as in plural?”
“Yeah. I really liked the second one you gave me, with the prince and the President’s son.”
“Really?” With all the drama surrounding our breakup, I completely forgot that I’d given it to him.
“Really. I totally identified with the prince. His struggles with his sexual orientation and the media. And I liked how he stood up to his grandmother the Queen when those pictures of him and the President’s son got leaked to the press.”
The similarity of the book’s plot to our situation isn’t lost on me, and I wonder if it’s not lost on Adam, either. “I feel like you’re trying to tell me something.”
“Maybe.” He pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket and hands it to me.
“What’s this?”
“The line I was going to read in our scene. I wrote it myself and slipped it into my pocket before we went up on stage. I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”
I unfold the paper and smooth it out, holding it close to my face so I can read it in the shadowy, moonlit alley.
Four words.Look at your phone.
I stare at them, confused. I don’t know what to do with this. I was expecting some sort of heartfelt declaration. Not a tersely worded command.
“Well?” Adam prods.
