AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I freeze when he takes a loose strand of my hair between two fingers, twirling a ringlet around one of them. “Zara.”
I can smell his scent and it should be illegal to smell so good. Like fresh air, leather, sunshine and pure male energy. “Yeah?”
“Do you ever check your messages?”
“Um…”
“I sent you some. You didn’t answer them.”
“Oh. I don’t really go on my phone that much.” I might be the one person on the planet who’s not addicted to my phone. I sometimes wonder if there’s something wrong with me because I don’t get the dopamine hits everyone’s always going on about. “I don’t really go on social media that much because it always seems a little…I don’t know. Staged. Fake. I’m not that interested in other people’s staging of their own lives. I find it all kind of…boring.”
He’s watching me, like what I’ve just said is the most enthralling thing he’s ever heard.
“So I’ve turned off all my notifications except for messages from my sister and my dad.”
“Makes sense, if you don’t want to be distracted. But you’re going to need to add me to the list.”
“Elias. No. Seriously. This is crazy. Please. You need to leave now.”
“I am. I have another class, then football practice. But I’m going to be back later on tonight and we’re going to talk about what we’re going to do about this.”
“This? What this? There is no this. There can’t be.”
He looks down at me patiently. He’s so freaking good-looking and also annoyingly…genuine. “Oh, there can be.”
Slowly, I shake my head.
Slowly, he nods, holding my face gently and guiding my movement so I’m nodding too. God. He’s touching me. His hands are so warm. So strong and so sure. “If you’d bothered to check your messages you’d know by now that…shit. Don’t get mad when I tell you this.”
“Why would I get mad?”
“I posted your painting.”
“What painting?”
“The one you sent me. The one I sent myself.”
“What?”
“Before you panic, I didn’t put your name on it or any identifying information at all. I can take it down whenever you want. But I think you might want to leave it up for a while. People are going crazy over it.”
“What people?”
“I have a lot of followers.”
“What? How many?”
“I don’t know. Seven million or something like that.”
“Seven million?” I try to tone down my panic. “Elias, are you crazy? What if my dad sees it?”
“Is your dad on Instagram?”
“No.”
“Does your dad even know what Instagram is?”
He’s got a point. “Not really.”
