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“What?” I shook my head. “That makes no sense, Gerard.”
“Yeah, it does.” Nodding eagerly, he ignored the raindrops that were trickling down his face. “I know you’re better off without me, Claire. Okay? I know that.” Releasing a shaky breath, he held his hands up and shrugged helplessly. “But I also know I’m not better off without you.” He raised his hands in a helpless motion. “Not better off one bit.”
“Oh my god,” I cried out, beyond confused. “I never know where I stand with you.”
“In front,” came his quick response. “On top. Number one. Fucking always, Claire.”
“I have been waiting all my life for you to make a move. For you to grow a pair and just tell me how you feel.”
“You know how I feel.”
“Stop it, Gerard!” I snapped. “Stop playing with my heart. I can’t take it. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, because breaking my heart by accident is one thing but doing it on purpose is another thing entirely, and I don’t think I could come back from it.”
“Who’s playing?” he demanded. “I fucking love you, Claire Biggs.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth!” Gerard roared, turning a dark shade of purple as his outrage clearly grew. “I didn’t choose any of this, okay? I was born and there you were, and I had these feelings. And they grew, Claire,” he roared, stalked toward me. “Holy shit did they grow!” Looking more furious than I’d seen him in years, he hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me roughly against him. “Like neon fucking lit-up boomerang feelings that keep coming back no matter how far I push them away!”
“Oh yeah?” My heart decided to accelerate to the point where I felt like I was having physical chest pains. “Well, you can’t just…” My breath was puffy, and my voice was torn. “You can’t just…” Pained, I pressed the heel of my hand to my chest bone, while using my other hand to clutch my temple. “Oh god…”
“What?” He demanded. “What’s happening to you?”
“I’m having a moment.”
“You are?” Panic, anger, and confusion all filled his tone. “Holy shit, from what?”
“From you, Gerard,” I groaned, fisting his drenched school shirt in my hand. “From you, because you just hit me with the feels train, okay?”
“The feels train?”
“Yes, the feels train, you big dick!”
“Well, choo-choo,” he snapped back, tone laced with sarcasm as he pretended to yank on a horn. “Hop a-fucking-board, sweetheart. It’s about time you decided to join me. Considering I’ve been on the same damn feels train for years—”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up!”
“Shut up, Gerard!”
“No, I won’t shut up because you’re not the only—”
“I said ‘shut up’!” I screamed, clamping a hand over his mouth, eyes locked on his and the rain hammered down on us. “Shut up, Gerard Gibson. Just shut the hell up already!”
One moment we were glaring, and screaming, and shoving at each other and the next we were kissing.
Somehow, and only God himself knew how it happened, my hand on Gerard’s mouth had been replaced with my lips.
Desperately. Voraciously. Adoringly. Our lips collided in a frenzied hunger that had been building up for sixteen years and had finally bubbled over.
Kissing him felt like I had suddenly remembered the answer to a question that had been tormenting me for hours. You know the feeling of frustration when something is on the tip of your tongue forever, and you finally figure it out and relief floors you? Well, that’s how I was feeling in this moment.
And if wasn’t just me doing the kissing, either. Gerard didn’t hesitate to reciprocate my kiss. Not for one millisecond. No, he was kissing me back, and I mean really kissing me back. With just as much flair and need and desperation.
Fisting my hair with one hand, he reciprocated every reckless thrust of my tongue with an experienced thrust of his own, while he pulled me roughly against him with his other hand, fingertips digging into the fleshy part of my hip.
Trembling violently, I clung to his shoulders, feeling my body grow weak. Seriously, my legs were shaking so violently, I could hardly keep upright.
