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He nudged my chin back. “What did you just say?”

“I’ll go see Hendricks⁠—”

“No,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “Before that.”

A throbbing headache built at my temples. I stared up at him, trying to parse what he was asking, but my mind was a blank. “What?”

“The thing about me being the first person you’ve ever had feelings for,” he clarified, his thumb brushing along my jawline. “You never told me that.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Cally’s brow furrowed, his head shaking slowly. “No, Mikey. You never said anything like that.”

I took a big step back. I couldn’t think straight when he was touching me. “We talked about this, Cal. Did you take a hit to the head I don’t know about?”

“I don’t think so,” he answered, his voice painfully earnest.

Goddamn him and his literal fucking brain.

“It was a couple of days after you told me about that Brooks guy. It was obvious you were still embarrassed about it, so I told you about the time I couldn’t get it up with Simone, and how terrified I’d been that she was going to tell everyone.”

“Right.” His eyes darted across my face, his nose scrunched. “I remember that, obviously. Then I told you about a guy on my old team who could only get hard if his girlfriend called him a piece of total shit, and we both laughed. Then we started talking about all the other people you’ve dated.”

“Yes, that.” I pointed a finger at him. “And I told you none of those relationships were serious, and the thing with Simone wasn’t an isolated experience, and how I had started to wonder if I can only fuck people I care about.”

“Right, but you weren’t a virgin,” he said, rubbing his palm over his forehead. “You’ve had sex before. Ergo, you’ve had feelings for people.”

“Ergo?” I shot back, my temper getting the better of me. “I don’t need to love someone to fuck them, Cal. I just need to like them.”

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that?” he thundered, wincing immediately at the volume. He lowered his voice to ask again, “How was I supposed to know that?’

I dropped my head back and groaned. “It doesn’t matter. None of this matters.”

We were getting off track here, Cally fixating on the wrong thing.

“It does,” he argued. “Because I’m really fucking confused right now, Mikey.”

I spun away, hauled my duffel out from the corner, and started stuffing all my shit back into it. Halfway through, my hands froze. Why the fuck was I packing when I’d be back here permanently tomorrow?

My shoulders slumped. Dropping my bag with a thud, I let out a heavy, heartbroken sigh. “I don’t really know what to do right now, Cal.”

Cally’s arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me back against his bare chest. He pressed a long, lingering kiss to the top of my head. “I love you,” he murmured into my hair.

My head fell forward. “I never should have asked you to marry me. I ruined everything.”

“You didn’t.” He spun me around, his hands coming up to frame my cheeks. He tilted my head back, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Will you let me talk now?”

“You have been talking,” I muttered, my tone only slightly petulant.

“I’ve been responding, though not very well.”

I sniffed and ducked out of his reach, shoving my hands into my pockets. “Fine. Talk.”

“First, I want to clarify that I wasn’t crying because I’m upset. It’s important that you know that straight away.”

I blinked, my pulse jumping. “Then why?”

“Because I was…” He trailed off, his eyes flicking up to the ceiling as if he was searching his brain for the word. A small, wry smile pulled at the corner of his mouth before he dropped his gaze back to mine. “I was going to ask you to marry me.”