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He smiled, then hooked a finger under her chin and gently urged it back into position.
“Do you like it?” Eli asked.
“Of course I do. I love it, but—”
“Does it make you happy?” he interrupted.
“Well, yeah,” Beth added. “But—”
“But what?” He cut her off again.
She slapped a palm over his mouth, his five-o’clock shadow tickling her fingers. His eyes widened, and she waited for him to protest.
“But…” She hesitated. When he made no move to interrupt again, she finally finished her thought. “But I wouldn’t have as much fun thanking them as I will thanking you.” Beth lowered her hand.
Eli’s expression was unreadable. He cleared his throat. “Turn around again…please.”
Beth obliged his request, spinning in his arms and then coming to rest with her back against his chest, his hands clasped around her middle.
The ballerina continued to spin.
“I know your sister likes to lay it on thick about you staying here for her, but she knows where your heart is, and she believes in you.”
She wrapped her hands around his. “And what do you believe?” she asked, pulse pounding, happy she didn’t have to look him in the eye.
She felt his chest expand and contract, expand and contract.
“I believe… Hmm… I believe in lazy mornings outside the chicken coop…”
Beth laughed. “As long as the feral ones stay inside.”
“I believe in doing favors for friends, even if it means a long car ride with a woman who wants nothing more than to tear me a new one.”
She bopped him against the shoulder with the back of her head.
“Hey. You try being duped by your sibling into taking care of your mental health when you’re so not in a place to do so…which is why you have to be duped.”
He responded first by nudging her head with his chin. “I was,” he told her. “This morning.”
She sighed. “Fine. But you were kidnapped for a morning. I was kidnapped indefinitely.” Though she didn’t feel much like a prisoner anymore.
“I believe in long rides to secret places…” he continued.
“You didn’t used to.”
“I didn’t…but I do now.”
Because of her. Beth knew that, yet at the same time she couldn’t believe she had the power to push him forward. She could feel his heart hammering against her, and her own pulse raced to match its rhythm.
He dipped his head and whispered against her ear. “And I think, maybe, I might be starting to believe in second chances.”
A spark of electricity ran down her spine.
Beth’s head swam, and her belly felt like it was full of kindergarten butterflies at recess.
And what do you believe? Why did she have to ask that? Or better yet, why did every single one of his responses have to do with her?
She knew why. It was the same reason why she’d ignored her filter—or maybe she could blame that on the pints—and asked in the first place.
