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He hung his head, pointing at me. “Low blow.”
“The truth hurts.” I snickered, thanking Lisa when she came back long enough to drop off a tall glass of ice water. I took a sip, then smiled at him. “Okay, my turn.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I leaned forward. “Okay, first, you have four different laughs.”
“What?”
“Yeah. There’s this like stifled chuckle thing that you do when you want to laugh at something really immature and dumb, but you’re holding back because of me. Then there’s the little giggle you do when it’s just the two of us, which is way different from the deep manly laugh you do when Will’s around.”
His eyes sparkled as he looked at me over the rim of his coffee cup. “And what’s the fourth?”
“The fourth is when something is so funny you can’t even handle it, and you throw your head back and kind ofguffaw like a horse. Usually accompanied by a good old-fashioned knee-slap.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Wow. That sounds really attractive.”
“Oddly, I guess it is,” I mused.
“So, besides the fact that you clearly spend too much time analyzing my laughter, what else do you know about me?”
“Hmm. Well, I know you’re obsessed with keeping your truck clean. Like, no straw wrapper can be left behind. Sometimes I leave receipts or wrappers in there just to drive you nuts.”
Paul gasped. “That’s horrible.”
“It is.”
“I know I said there were no deal breakers but…”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “I also know you can’t help but pull for the underdog in every situation. Whether it’s sports or even that one time when we saw those kids playing red rover at the park. It’s like you find the one who is least likely to win and then pin all your hopes on them.” Lisa appeared with our food then, and he looked a little uneasy when he thanked her for his. When she was gone, I raised a brow at him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I don’t know, just a vibe, I guess.”
He took a bite of his steak and considered me as he chewed. Then he took a sip of his Coke. “I’m just trying to figure out how long it’s going to take me to get used to this.”
“What?”
“This,” he gestured between us with his fork. “This change. The fact that I don’t have to sit here and feel like an idiot for loving you when I didn’t have a chance with you.”
Guilt flowed through me then and I couldn’t meet his eyes for a minute. We ate in silence then, both of us probably replaying parts of our big conversation last night. Finally, I looked up. “I’m really sorry again.”
“For what?”
“Making you think I didn’t have feelings for you all this time. I never considered that it was unfair to you. I really thought I was doing the right thing.”
Paul set down his fork and reached across the table, squeezing my hand. “Hey, seriously. Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad we figured it out before we spent the next fifty years as friends and then you didn’t want me anymore because I was all saggy and old.”
“Stop it,” I said with a laugh, shaking my head. It was probably dumb, but fear worked its way into my head. What if I didn’t make it another fifty years?
Paul’s phone vibrated on the table and while chewing his bite, he read the message. “Oh, hey, looks like my dad was serious about going skydiving. He reserved some spots for tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Yep. He said he booked it so Will and I could jump with him, and Mom and Aria are coming to watch.”
I chuckled as I chewed my breakfast, imagining his dad jumping out of an airplane. “Wow.”
