Luke’s brow is furrowed, eyes squinting like he’s confused. My hands drop from his face.
“What was that?” he asks.
“I . . . I was just testing something,” I say, feeling so dumb.
You idiot, Claire.
Well, there’s my answer, at least. Now I know.
I take a step back from him.
He stares at me for a beat. “What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing . . . I’m sorry.” I take another step back.
He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up. “You can’t keep doing this to me.”
I go still.What?
“Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you disappear. I can’t keep doing this, Claire. I can’t keep almost having you.”
“You . . . still want me?” I ask, pointing to myself.
Maybe you saw what you expected to see.Gigi’s words rush back to me. Is that what happened? No, I know what I saw. It was just as it’s always been. He pulled away. He left.
And now he looks . . . angry. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Luke this mad.
He takes a step toward me. “Want you? I think I might be in love with you, Claire.”
“You . . . what?”
No one’s ever said those words to me before. Because I never got to this part. So I don’t know how to trust that this is real.
He takes another step closer. “Why do you keep running?”
“Because I’m cursed.” The words just fall out of my mouth. I could have tried to come up with another excuse, spin the narrativelike I know how to, but I might as well lay all my cards out right now.
“What?” he asks, confused.
I take a steadying breath. “You don’t have to believe it’s a curse; you just have to know that every man I’ve ever kissed has walked away from me afterward. I have actually never had a second kiss until just now.”
Which technically doesn’t count because I kissed him. But that’s not important right now.
He’s shaking his head, not understanding.
“I promise, I’m telling the truth. And when you’ve had that many first kisses and no one stuck around for a second one, you see the pattern for what it is,” I say. “And so I thought if I kissed you . . . you’d leave.”
“How could you think I would do that?” he asks, his brow pinched.
I shrug. “It’s all I’ve ever known. But then I kissed you anyway.”
“But I didn’t leave. You were crying, and I didn’t understand why. And then Victoria interrupted. But I came back for you. I wasn't gone that long. When you weren't there, I went to look for you in the parking lot—I saw you getting into the Uber just as it pulled away.”
I stare at him. He . . . came back for me.
“I didn’t know,” I say. He’s so close now, I reach up and put a hand on his chest, rubbing lightly back and forth with my thumb.
He hooks a finger under my chin. “So what does this mean?”
