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Her throat worked as she swallowed. “Right.”
He nodded, trying to convince himself this was a good thing. The right thing. “Great!”
Her hand, which was resting on her thigh, started a fast rotation of tapping with each finger. Her gaze was focused on the blanket. He didn’t think she was going to say anything else, but then she looked up with a determined expression. “No. Not great.”
The change in her tone jarred him out of his thoughts. “What?”
“Everything’snot great. I’m lying to you.” She looked off to his left, like she was studying the trunk of the oak tree. “Cal did tell me he loved me, but he went home a few hours after you left my house.”
Jasper shook his head, confused. “What do you mean?”
She quickly peeked over at him, her nose scrunching. “He told me he wanted to be with me. He told me he’s moving here. He kissed me.”
An involuntary sound of annoyance escaped Jasper’s throat.
“Then he left because I told him I needed time to think,” she finished.
“Oh.” Jasper didn’t know where she was going with this, but he was fixated on the idea of Cal kissing her right after Jasper had walked out the door. The dude didn’t waste any time.
“Yeah. So I’ve spent the last two days trying to figure out how I feel.” She grabbed a leaf that had fallen onto the blanket and started breaking off little bits of it. “And I know what you’re trying to tell me. I hear you. This has run its course for you, and you wish me well. Got it.” She looked up, a wary expression on her face. “But if we’re ending this, I want to do it the way we came into it—with absolute honesty.”
He tried to catch her eye, to search her expression, but she wouldn’t look directly at him. “Okay.”
Little pieces of leaf fell from her fingertips, and she glanced up at him from under her lashes. “I can’t figure out how I feel about Cal because…all I can think about is how I feel about you.”
Jasper’s breathing stilled.
“I know I’m completely breaking the promise I made coming into this,” she went on. “And I’m sure I sound pathetic. But the last month with you has been…the best of my adult life. Fun and filled with laughter. Intense. Exciting.” She wet her lips. “Hot. And…every time I try to picture a future with Cal—Cal whom I adore and who is absolutely great—I keep picturing one with you in it instead. And it’s unfair for me to lay that on you because I’m putting you in a shitty position to let me down, but I’m telling you this because I’m freeing you from that duty.
“I can’t keep my promise about not developing feelings for you, but I can keep my promise of not expecting anything from you. You told me what this could and couldn’t be, and I haven’t forgotten that. But, I’m also tired of being too scared to speak. I’ve spent my life keeping my mouth shut, swallowing my opinions and feelings. I need to get this out in the open, so I can let you go and move on.” She took a breath. “So there it is. I hope that I haven’t made it too weird and that we can still be friends.”
Jasper’s ears were buzzing and his heart was beating painfully fast. The wind blew, shaking the leaves above them, like the tree was applauding Hollyn’s speech. More leaves fell around them, one catching in her hair.
“Friends,” Jasper repeated, reaching out to untangle the leaf from her hair.
“Yeah.” She nodded, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip. He could see her hands were trembling, the leaf stem she was holding quivering like a tuning fork. This had taken everything out of her to say.
That simple sight broke him open. Everything he’d been trying to talk himself out of came rushing in like a stampede of goddamned bison. This woman who hadn’t been able to even look him in the eye when they’d first met had just declared her feelings for him, convinced that they weren’t going to be reciprocated, putting herself out there and expecting rejection. Doing it anyway.
She was the bravest fucking person he knew. She was…
“You should date Cal,” he said abruptly.
Her gaze snapped upward, a flash of pain there.
He took her hands in his, trying to steady hers, all his resolve rushing out of him. “But fucking hell, Hollyn, I really, really don’t want you to.”
She blinked. “I don’t understand.”
He ran his thumbs over her knuckles, no longer able to tell if she was the one shaking or if he was. “I am the wrong choice by far. I don’t have money or my own place. I’m still pouring coffee at twenty-five. I can be flighty as shit. I’ve been epically bad at relationships and will probably figure out a way to screw things up. You deserve so much better than me. I came here to tell you that. I had a whole plan. But I’m also a selfish fuck. And right now, I selfishly need to tell you that…I’m into you. Like really into you. Not as friends. Not as an arrangement. But…” He swallowed hard. “But if I’m not careful, I’m at high risk for falling in love with you.”
Her lips parted and her nose ticced. “What?”
“And I know Cal probably gave you some romantic speech. I know he’s got the better résumé and stability and history with you, but goddammit, I can’t do this. I can’t sit here and pretend I want you to be with him. I don’t want you to be with anyone else but me.”
* * *
Hollyn was hot all over and literally shaking. Was this actually happening? Jasper was looking at her like he was pained, like he hadn’t wanted to say these things but couldn’t help himself. Her eyes burned. “You want to be with me?”
