Page 173 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

but still.

“Don’t even go there. Not what I meant.

“I don’t fall into feelings⁠—”

He tsks. “Yeah, yeah, you don’t fall.

“You spiral. Straight into me.

“Like a fuckin’ corkscrew⁠—

“can’t ever pull yourself outta it.”

I shove his shoulder,

and his smile spreads,

starting in his eyes,

then taking his whole face with it.

“Well, guess what,” he murmurs, drawing closer. “I got some feelings for you, too.” He wets his lip with a weak shrug. “Some I’m-not-okay-without-you feelings kinda shit.”

His words attack me.

Like I heard them,

but now I hear them.

And somehow that’s different.

I said those same words the night we first met. “You actually remember what I said? At Type? About the song? About Angel?”

His thumbs hook into the waistband of my skirt, yanking me in as if he can’t stand the gap. “Yeah, Allison. Everything. Always.”

My smile hangs on my face.

He remembers everything.

He wants to build a new contract together.

He wants to sleep together every night.

What the actual fuck is happening?

“That’s obsessive, right? Remembering that shit?” I narrow my eyes at him. “I can’t even remember the goddamn capital of my own state. All I know is, it ain’t Manhattan. Which is stupid ‘cause Manhattan’s the biggest fuckin’ city we got. So that’s—that’s crazy you’d remember that.

“Like word-for-word and all.”

I jab a finger at him.

“You’re fuckin’ crazy.

“As a matter of fact, this is all crazy if you really think about it. Like obsessed-stalker crazy. Me? I don’t even remember your last name.”

Andrew Joseph Harding.

His hands leave me,