Page 7 of The Snuggle Is Real

So I don’t have relationships. I have casual encounters of the Tinder kind and at various points in my life I have had friends with benefits.

But I don’t like the way any of that sounds coming from Emily’s mouth because I respect her more than any other woman I know besides my mother and my grandmother.

Ironically, really, because if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain I would wreck it, I would want a relationship with Emily. But I keep a lid on it—really damn tight—because I cannot and won’t lose her friendship.

Which I would, because of the cumquat thing.

“Face it, the only convincing truth is that you threw yourself at me,” I tease her, stuffing my emotions down as usual.

“Fine. I suddenly became a completely different person and threw caution to the wind and myself at you and you suddenly morphed into a guy who goes all in on impulse and here we are.” Emily flutters her eyelashes at me. “Your mother is going to sniff us out in thirty seconds.”

She might. But only because of Emily, who I suspect is going to have a hard time pretending to be in love with me.

I’m pretty damn sure I can play my part convincingly.

We smell the bonfire as we pull in the drive, thanks to Emily’s open window, and my pyromaniac brothers.

MacKay's house sits on eleven acres with a white farmhouse he and Faith have been fixing up one room at a time. Tonight every window is lit. Cars and trucks are lined up in the field, and past the barn there's the insanely large bonfire. No one is roasting marshmallows in that four alarm blaze.

String lights zig-zag between the trees. There are straw bales set in a circle for seating. There’s low music playing, but mostly we can hear chatter and lots of laughing.

“MacKay’s old football buddies are all here,” I tell Emily. “Don’t get distracted by hunky pro players and forget to pretend that you adore me.”

“That is pretty hot that your brother played professional football,” she comments.

I frown as I park and cut the engine. “It was only for one year.”

I can feel her grinning. I refuse to look at her but I can definitely sense her amusement. “Worst year of your life?” she asks.

“Of course not. I would never be jealous of my brother’s success. Any of them.” I mean that one hundred percent. “But I do have oldest brother syndrome. A need to have all the answers.”

“And I have only child syndrome. A need for total control.”

I gesture between us with my finger. “Two peas, one pod, Em.”

I get out and come around to her side. She's already opening her door, but I'm there in time to offer her my hand. Opening her door is a reflex and I have opened the door for Emily dozens of times before. My mother drilled into all four of us.

But now it feels like too much.

She giggles then claps her hand over her mouth. “I just giggled. Oh my God. I never giggle.”

“You’re in love, that’s why. Emily in love giggles, apparently.”

She takes my hand and slides off of the seat. “Isn’t only two months of dating premature to be declaring we’re in love? Can’t we just be in firm affection with each other?”

“After knowing each other for fifteen years? That’s a little weak. Like fence straddling. One foot in, one foot out. Testing the waters.”

“Getting the lay of the land. Feeling it out.” She eases past me, quickly dropping my hand. “You’re right. Fine. Game faces. We're in love."

"Exactly. We're in love," I repeat.

Emily stares up at me, her face illuminated by the glow of the abundance of string lights. “This is nuts, you do realize that?”

What’s nuts is that I am, in fact, in love with her and refuse to tell her.

This falls more under the category of self-inflicted torture.

We don't make it ten feet before my mother finds us.