Page 48 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “It’s probably good nothing else happened. We are two people that never should have kissed in the first place.” I’d said enough, but I just kept going, because it was easier than getting rejected all over again. “I mean, it was probably just circumstance. You were available. I was available. And you never really noticed that I existed, prior to the whole wedding thing.”

Declan frowned. “What?”

“You know.” I shrugged as I dug another pair of jeans out of the rack. “Single people always look for a hookup at weddings.”

“Not that. Though I’m not sure that’s true, by the way.” It was definitely true, on a conscious level or otherwise, but I wasn’t about to argue. “I meant the part about me not noticing you existed.”

“Well, yeah.” The jeans were my size and miraculously un-bedazzled. Like finding the needle in a haystack. I searched for a price tag. “You said it yourself. You didn’t even know I played tuba—”

“It was my first week!”

“But even if it wasn’t,” I insisted. “You never really gave me the time of day, and then you were too popular to even notice, and I get that, it’s just—”

“Margo,” he said, deadpan. “I was practically in love with you for all of high school.”

It took a few seconds for what he had said to click into place. I looked up from the price tag. He shook his head, faintly, like he was at a loss for words. Like it should have been obvious. “No, you weren’t. You never even talked to me.”

“Because you hated me after the tuba thing.”

“I wouldn’t say I hated you,” I hedged.

He sketched a brow. “Well, it certainly didn’t seem like you liked me very much. You avoided my table like the plague during lunch. You never laughed at any of my jokes. And you practically begged the Spanish teacher to put you in a different practice group just so that you wouldn’t have to say, ‘Buenos días, Declan,’ every time we sat down.”

I gaped at him. I might’ve been ignorant about romance, but I did know that here, standing in the middle of this ridiculously tacky shop, wearing stained jeans—it wasn’t exactly the way you picture these sorts of confessions, the way they show them in the movies.

“Does Peter know?” I asked. If he knew, then there was a chance that Jo knew, and I couldn’t help wondering if that had been the source of her hesitation at the start of all this. Why she’d said she wasn’t comfortable hiding it from Peter. But if she’d known and hadn’t told me …

“Yes. He knew about it back then, anyway. We haven’t talked about it recently, with the wedding …” Declan trailed off. “Jo?”

I wasn’t sure what he was asking. “I haven’t talked to her about last night, if that’s what you mean.”

“Why not?”

“What would I even say?”

I meant it genuinely, but now that it was out in the open, it sounded more like a challenge. Go ahead, Declan. Explain to me exactly what happened between us last night. His bright hazel eyes studied my face. They were very nice eyes, I thought. Mossy greens and warm earthen browns. Even his eyes had freckles—little flecks of dark brown that I only noticed standing close like this, in the well-lit shop.

“So,” I said finally, because neither of us seemed likely to put much else into words at the moment. “You liked me.”

“Yes. I mean, I still do, obviously.”

“Why?” I asked, even as my stomach was doing a backflip. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to hear. “We barely even talked in high school.”

His courage was bolstered by the question. He moved closer to me, close enough that I could feel that magnetic pull, the temptation to run my hands up his stomach again, to feel his hands on me. But he didn’t close the gap. “You were feisty and funny and talented and probably way too beautiful for me. You still are,” he rushed to add. “But you’re not all those things because you’re worried about what other people think; you’re just you. You’re just so sure of yourself, all the time. It’s magnetic. It always has been.”

My heart did something funny in my chest as I realized he’d voiced exactly what I was thinking. Magnetic. Which meant he felt that pull, too. “I’m not sure of myself,” I said, a last-ditch effort to convince him—and maybe to convince myself—that this was a bad idea. “And you’re wrong. I’m always worried about what other people think. Just look at my social media.” I breathed a humorless laugh. He had never so much as glanced at my Instagram, and probably never would. “I’m always second-guessing everything. I archive, like, half my Instagram pictures after posting them.”

He exhaled, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-hearted smile. “Last night?” he ventured, uncertainly. “Did you second-guess that?”

“Parts of it,” I admitted.

“That was probably my fault,” he mumbled as his fingers found the belt loop of my jeans, and pulled slowly, experimentally. I didn’t fight it, letting him tug me closer until we were almost pressed against each other. “But for what it’s worth, I vote that you stop second-guessing things. Stop second-guessing this, anyway.” His other hand came to my hip, slipping just beneath my shirt, his thumb teasing skin-on-skin as he pulled me against him, sending a shudder through me.

I closed my eyes. “Seems like that’s how people get themselves into trouble.”

“What kinds of trouble?”

Trouble like commitment. Trouble like a guy who doesn’t do one-night stands kissing a girl who doesn’t want a boyfriend. Like leaked images of a summer fling that probably deserved to be more than just another anecdote, but that was all it was ever going to be, once the truth came out. But I didn’t say any of that, because I was scared it would ruin this, that he’d pull away and this time, we wouldn’t be able to talk it through. “Trouble like two slightly tipsy people getting stuck in an elevator,” I said instead.