Virtually and in reality.
I can’t wait to see his face when I tell him. And nothing’s stopping me from doing it right now.
“Hey, I need to tell you something.”
“Is it serious?” he asks, the perfect amount of playfulness. “You’re not going to tell me you’re a spy, right? That confidential criminal justice job of yours?—”
An icy gust of wind from the lake slaps me across the face.
My job.
“Uh,” I say, the air in my lungs vanishing so I feel panicky. “Huh. Okay, I have two things, actually.”
But the train roars into the station with a screech of brakes and the frigid wind cuts right through my coat. As passengers start jostling toward the train, they take my words with them.
“Tell me when we’re onboard,” he says over the clamoring noise, and then his lips catch mine before I can speak, before I can say anything. My lips are cold from the winter air, but he warms me fast, and I could almost forget everything except thatOliver is Arrow and Arrow is Oliver and I love both parts of him so much, I could burst.
His hands hold my face tenderly, his thumbs brushing my cheek.
“Get a room,” a voice mutters from a few feet away. “It’s barely five in the morning.”
Oliver pulls back laughing and then stands, holding a hand out to mine. “Looks like we’re official,” he says, making my heart skip and trip.
“How so?” I ask weakly.
“You know you’re a real couple when you offend complete strangers.”
I chuckle over the low hum of dread.
Oliver grabs our bags with one hand and helps me with the other, guiding me through the crowd boarding the train. The press of bodies makes conversation impossible, which gives me too much time to think.
Just tell him about Arrow first. That’s the good news!
“Funny story: we knew each other before the plane! You’re Arrow. I’m GracieLou. We’ve been falling for each other online for over a year. Tah-dah!”
He’ll be shocked. Definitely surprised. But happy, too.
Until I tell him about Mercy in Justice.
The train car is warm, already filling with passengers. Oliver finds us spots halfway down—two seats together on the right side—and insists I take the window seat.
“I’m an aisle seat kind of gal, remember?” I say.
“I don’t want you to risk talking to someone better than me,” he says, nodding to the window seat. “Humor me.”
He puts my crutches in a storage compartment and I sit with a strained smile.
He’s so much brighter than usual, and that brightness makes hope and guilt clash in me. The lightness to him is because of me. I know it is.
It’s all going to be okay.
Oliver settles into his seat. “So, about those two things,” he says, giving me the opening I hope I’m brave enough to take.
Of course I’m brave enough. I love him. You don’t keep secrets from people you love.
“Yeah.” I inhale a ragged, hopeful breath. “I don’t know how to say this, so?—”
Oliver’s phone rings before I can say whatever I don’t know how to say. “Sorry, can you hold on? That’s my second call from my mom in a minute.”
