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He rolled his eyes. “You should have stood firm and remembered me!”
“Oh, you are—”
“You forgot me twice!” He shot back, and I froze.
Twice? “What?”
“You are the most infuriating woman I have ever met in my life and you’ve met the women in my family, so that truly is an accomplishment.” He shook his head at me, brushing me aside to take the wine off the counter next to the money.
“When else did we meet?”
He glared at me, using a knife to uncork the wine, and poured it into the owl mug. I outstretched my hand to take it, but he drank instead.
“Now you’re just being petty.”
“Takes one to know one.” He…oh my God, he was pouting. He poured the wine into the cat mug, giving it to me. “I can’t believe you still don’t remember. When I met you in the basement back then, I thought you’d figure it out, but you never did.”
“WHAT?” He was just messing with me now.
“You came to Chicago weeks before I came to Boston! We were volunteering once at the shelter, and you came up, unable to choose between the—”
“Chocolate and lemon cakes.” I remembered, clapping my hands, then pointed to him. “That was you!”
He snickered. “I called you picky.”
“And I said maybe you weren’t picky enough.”
“And you called me short.”
“I was leaving that part out on purpose.” I grinned, finally gripping my cat wine. “You grew, though, so I guess it didn’t matter.”
“It did matter.” He leered at me. “I’d never been so upset with a girl in my whole life. When you told me ‘so what?’ after I called you fat I was livid. My father…he laughed. Everyone laughed because I’d never lost a fight before.”
“Aww, poor Ethan,” I teased, and he rolled his eyes. “If it makes you feel better, I never felt like I won a fight.” Most times, even if I used my fist, I ended up punished in some way or shape.
“It doesn’t,” he said honestly.
We sat in silence for a while, just holding our mugs.
He felt so far standing only a few feet from me, so I put the cup back down and walked around to where he stood. His eyes dropped down to mine. Reaching over, I took his cup and put it down too, then just hugged him, nothing more. Just a hug. He wrapped his arms around me, his chin on my head, my cheek on his chest.
“You’re making me soft,” he whispered.
I smiled, squeezing tight. “Only for me, though.”
He didn’t reply, so I kept talking.
“You’re never allowed to say you aren’t romantic again.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Well, duh, they weren’t me.”
He snickered, and I felt his chest shake. “You’re really going to let this go to your head, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely.”
He cared. He remembered. He came back for me. He loved me. I wasn’t letting go. I’d follow him this time, no matter where he went.
