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She didn’t reply. She just walked away, and I wasn’t sure what to make of the whole exchange. But I didn’t, nor did I want to think about it.
“Everything all right?”
I turned to Gale, who stood, waiting, and just like that, my shoulders relaxed. I wasn’t sure how he did it, but I was grateful.
“Yeah.” I smiled.
“I’m perfect.”
Chapter 23
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Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
That sound— Jumping out of bed, I yelled, “The fire extin—”
I froze on top of the mattress, completely and utterly confused, as Gale grinned at me, a phone with a beeping alarm in one hand and a cupcake in the other.
“You!”
“Happy birthday!” He laughed at me.
Grabbing the pillow, I threw it at his head. “Not funny!”
“Really? Because I’m laughing quite hard.” And he really was even as he ducked out the way of the pillow.
“So freaking annoying,” I grumbled, sitting back down on the bed and grabbing the covers to wrap around myself—seeing as how I was barely dressed. I could hardly remember last night. Well, that was a lie. I could completely remember last night, but I didn’t want to think about it. However, not wanting to think about something only made me think about it more. We’d gone to my mother’s for Thanksgiving dinner and found ourselves pretending to be watching a movie when in reality, we did what we had been doing a lot of lately—holding on to each other until the other fell asleep. I vaguely remembered trying to press for more only to be gently rejected, which was confusing, seeing as how I remembered how it felt as he carried me back to bed. How it felt it when he was kissing me, holding on to me...and how disappointed I was when he had stopped and said we should sleep. I had no idea what was going through his mind—or mine, for that matter.
“Happy birthday,” he said again, sitting beside me. “I remembered a little late that today was your birthday, and I wasn’t sure what to get you, so bear with me.”
I thought he meant the cupcake. However, he reached over to the bedside table and put the cupcake down to lift a piece of paper to show me. The moment I saw it, I couldn’t help but stare. He had drawn a very detailed sketch of me coming up the stairs, dressed as Cinderella, my hairstyle exactly as it was the first time we’d met. And instead of being shocked, I was smiling.
