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“An adventure?” Lacey taps her phone screen to check the time and frowns. “It’s midnight.”
“It’s not far. Just a few steps away.”
“Oh, God. This is the part where you kill me, isn’t it?” she sighs, an exasperated sound that fills the room around us. “I knew watching all those true crime shows would come back and bite me in the ass. You were too good to be true.”
I laugh and pluck the book from her hands. I make sure to put her bookmark in place so she doesn’t lose her spot. “I’d be too lonely if I killed you. Who would make me pumpkin pies? Who would I bring magnets to? I have a whole box of them at home. I can’t just be the magnet guy.”
“Wait.” She sits up and tugs on my shirt. Her fingers curl around the sleeve and she pulls me toward her. “You have a box of magnets?”
“I do,” I say.
“Why?”
I open my mouth, but there’s a moment of hesitation.
I want to start being honest with this woman. About my feelings. About where I see things going with her when we get back home.
I’ve never really been scared in my life; you can’t be when you’re an athlete. You have to anticipate. React. There’s not a lot of time to be afraid when you’re sprinting down a football field.
Having feelings for your best friend is different. It’s a lot of flailing. Thinking you’re up a creek without a paddle all because she fuckingsmiledat you, and you feel like you’re flying.
It’s being worried she might run—not because she doesn’t want you, too, because it’s so obvious she does—but because she’s also scared.
I’m going to go slow with Lacey. Not give it all away at once but ease her into the idea of us. A version of this story that doesn’t have an ending but a new beginning instead.
I have no fucking cluehow, but I’ll figure it out.
“I buy four or five magnets every time I travel somewhere,” I explain. “I give you one, but I keep the others in case you don’t like what I picked. In case yours breaks or gets lost. In case I stop coaching tomorrow and I can never go back to these places, I want to be able to keep giving you something. I have this plan to give you a new one every year until you’re the magnet girl.”
“There’s a shoebox in your closet of magnets with California burritos on them?” she asks.
She reaches for my hand, and her fingers press into the pulse point of my wrist. I hum, distracted by the drag of her nails and the way her skin is fair and smooth.
“Yes,” I say around an exhale, a whoosh of wind leaving my lungs. “Yes, there is. Beavers, too. And apples for New York. There are about eighty of them in there.”
“And you want to give them all to me?”
I curl my fingers around her chin and tilt her head back. Her eyes are as wide as saucers and as green as the grass in the summertime.
“When the timing is right, they’re yours. If you want them.”
Her lips form an O, and I can tell a dozen questions linger on the tip of her tongue. “I would,” she finally says, and my heart jolts in my chest. “I would like them.”
“Good.” I rub my thumb down the curve of her cheek. “Will you go on an adventure with me?”
“Yeah.” Lacey nods, and I’m going to pretend she’s agreeing to every adventure with me, not just this one. “I will.”
I climb off the bed and point to her jacket. “Bundle up. We’re going outside.”
“It’s twenty degrees.”
“That’s why you’re going to wear a coat.” I grab my own layers and pull on a beanie and gloves, making sure to take the heavy blanket off the bed, too. “We won’t stay there long.”
“Okay.” She hurries to her suitcase, shrugging on her coat and shoving her feet into her boots. “I’m excited.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have been so enthusiastic. It’s not that great.”
“I doubt that. Everything with you is wonderful.”
