Page 85 of Falling for Keeps

“Yeah. We’d run people notes to pull them from class, or sit at the desk when Mrs. Albany needed a bathroom break.”

His eyes bore into me so hard I’m wondering if they might produce lasers. “My junior year.”

“Yeah. One day we even did the coffee run for the office staff⁠—”

“And made a detour for energy drinks at the market.” Carson nods. “I remember.”

“I was trying to play it cool because I’d never had one before and you got me a Red Bull, but I thought it was disgusting.”

His face breaks now, a laugh slipping out. “That was you?”

“I know how un-memorable I was, and the frizzy red hair and braces didn’t help anything. But you were always nice to me. I might have even had a little crush on you.” I pinch my thumb and finger together to demonstrate how little that crush was.

It’s absolutely grown into something enormous, but he doesn’t need to know that. Besides, he’s stunned, trying to merge the two people I’ve been in his life into one.

“I’ve changed a lot⁠—”

“No, I don’t think you have.” He rubs the back of his hand over his mouth, probably trying to wipe away the residual feeling of pig slime.

I start toward my car.

“Wait, Emma, I mean it.” He follows me. “You might have tamed your hair and straightened your teeth, but you don’t look that different. You definitely act the same.”

Unlocking my car, I reach in for the wet wipes in my center console and straighten with a snap. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“First off, I thought your name was Harper.”

“That’s my last name.”

“I know that now, and I can see the confusion. But I called you Harper, didn’t I?”

Yeah, he totally did. “I thought it was a football bro thing.”

He cracks a smile, taking the wipes from my hand and opening them up. “Second off, you were just as self-sacrificing then. You haven’t changed at all. How long has your bathroom been unusable?”

No one needs to know the answer to that.

Carson pulls out a wipe and scrubs his lips. I can’t help staring as he does it. He folds the wipe and scrubs again until they’re shiny and red. “My point exactly,” he says smugly. “You should be tiling your bathroom and laying out the floor, but instead, you’re painting bedrooms pink and reupholstering chairs and baking bread and making an entire meal for your family to celebrate your mom and braiding the neighbor kid’s hair because she likes it and running every event for the library even though I’m guessing that Friends group is supposed to be doing it.”

“They’re really busy,” I say weakly.

“Who isn’t? Did you hear everything I listed?” He drops the wipes on the hood of my car. “That’s a lot, Emma, and everything I mentioned is only in the last, like…what? Three weeks?”

The affirmation I woke up to this morning doesn’t totally fit, but it pops in my head anyway. I am allowed to want more.

Looking at this man, I can’t help but think that my app, Affirmly, doesn’t know what it’s talking about. I can’t want him.

Stepping back, I nod along. “It’s always been hard for me to take time for myself. My sister’s the same way, and I’m pretty sure we both get it from our mom. I think it runs in the family.”

“Don’t brush it off, Emma.”

“I’m not. But I do need to get back to the event and make sure the money made it into the right hands. It’s a lot of cash.”

He watches me through narrowed eyes like he can sense my deflection. I pick up the wipes and toss them onto my front seat, then close the door and lock it. When I turn around, Carson is standing closer. I lean back against the car, looking up at him and trying not to hold my breath so I don’t faint.

“You’re important, too, Emma. When’s the last time you let someone do something for you?”

I swallow thickly and shake my head. “I don’t know.”