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I’d just told him I loved him.
Holy shit.
I wasn’t supposed to say that. This was meant to be a winter fling. This was meant to be both of us getting … whatever this was out of our systems so we could get on with our lives.
But there was no getting on with our lives.
Not after this.
There hadn’t been since that moment on the roof.
Elden had gone stock still when I’d said the words that I definitely shouldn’t have said. Never once had I felt like a child in his presence. Not once. But here, declaring my love, completely by accident, I felt small and young.
I’d never seen Elden at a loss for words before. Then again, this winter, words weren’t really a priority.
“Baby,” he murmured.
I braced myself for it. For him to do it again. Tell me I was just a kid. For us to repeat the circle once again.
The ringing of a phone made us both jerk.
“Saved by the bell,” I muttered.
I ignored Elden, putting the phone to my ear.
“Where are you?” my mother demanded.
“I’m at the café, closing up.” It wasn’t a lie. It was the narrow line I trod these days. I never lied to her completely about where I was, I just left out some important details.
Mainly the important detail that was glaring at me right then.
“Well, hurry up, or I’m sending someone over to get you.”
Dread slithered through me, thinking of who my mother would send and what they would surmise seeing Elden here with me. “I’ll be home in five minutes,” I told her, staring at Elden.
“We’re not at home,” she huffed out. “We’re at the restaurant. I closed it down for the night. We’re having a going away party, remember?” She said the wordremembermuch louder than everything else.
I searched my memory. “Mom, you never told me about a party.”
Something rustled against the phone. “I know,” she whispered. “Swiss thinks I forgot to tell you … after organizing this whole thing. As if a mother would forget her only daughter going back to college.”
“Mom, you did forget.”
“Shut up,” she hissed. “Swiss doesn’t need to know that. I am dealing with a baby boy, and he’s a lot. A perfect angel, but I’m a new mother and running a business. He needs to give me a break.”
“Okay, Mom. Don’t worry, I’ll be there in five,” I reassured her, hearing the hysteria in her voice.
“Okay, good, good,” she muttered. “She’s coming, she’s just … stuck in traffic!” she called out, I guessed to the people she’d gathered for this party.
“Mom, there’s no traffic,” I pointed out. “It’s like a … five-minute walk.”
“Whatever,” she snapped. “Just get here.”
I listened to the dead air, not ready to put the phone down. It was the buffer between the ‘I love you’ and Elden.
“I know she hung up,” Elden decimated that temporary defense, his voice low and throaty.
I pursed my lips, shoving the phone in my pocket. “I need to go.”
