Page 85 of Romeo

Did he like me the way I was starting to admit I liked him?

My stomach flipped.

I covered my face with both hands.

This was ridiculous.

Jasper was kind. Protective. Thoughtful. He sent flowers, remembered things I told him, worried when I didn’t answer, and seemed genuinely interested in what happened in my life.

None of that automatically meant he wanted me.

Attention had fooled me before. Billy had made fifteen-year-old me feel like I was the most important girl in the world. I’d believed him. Joseph Higgins had asked me to a dance and somehow I’d turned that into proof he liked me right up until I watched him walk inside with Amy.

My history did not exactly suggest I was an expert at interpreting men.

But Jasper felt different.

That was the problem.

When he called me Cher, something in his words made my chest ache. When my phone buzzed, I hoped it was him before I even looked. Conversations that should’ve lasted ten minutes somehow stretched for hours.

And lately, it felt as though we kept creeping closer to a line neither of us would name.

Maybe I was imagining that too.

The rejection letters still sat on my desk, reminders that wanting something badly didn’t make it yours.

I stared at them.

What if I told Jasper how I felt and he responded with pity?

I could almost hear him.

I’m sorry, Cher. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

No.

Absolutely not.

I couldn’t ask him directly. If I’d imagined all of this, I wasn’t sure I could ever look him in the face again.

But I needed something.

Some clue that would either let me hope or force me to stop before I made a complete idiot of myself.

I sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees. Our last text had come earlier that night.

Goodnight, Cher.

Two completely ordinary words that had somehow left me staring at the screen for ten minutes.

This was stupid.

So incredibly stupid.

I grabbed my phone anyway.