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“Lo sé, chico,”I murmured. Then I told Lina, “Okay, if that’s all then…”
“Wow,” Lina spat. “Just wow. You really are a bigger idiot than I thought you were.”
“I don’t have time for this—”
“No,” she cut me off. And the change in her voice was clear as day. I was going to listen to whatever she had called me to say. And if I hung up, she’d find a way. “You know you deserve to hear you’re being an idiot. That’s why you haven’t had the balls to pick up or return my calls. Because you don’t want to hear the truth. Because if you did hear the truth, you might open your eyes and see things differently and you might end up having to really dig into that hard head of yours.”
My jaw clamped shut.
Relentless, she continued, “I told you, Lucas. I warned you. I said,If you hurt her, I’ll murder you. Rosie’s my best friend. She’s my family here in New York. She was all I had before Aaron.” A pause, and I could tell, she was trying to rein it in. “And I wasn’t joking. Ishouldwant to murder you. But I said all of that when I assumed you two were just secretly fucking each other’s brains out. For fun.”
“It wasn’t like that.” I grunted. “Itneverwas.”
“I know,” she admitted. “I know that now. That’s the only reason why I might not try to kill you. Because now I know the whole story.”
I was almost scared to ask. “The whole story?”
“Yes, Lucas. Theexperimentyou two had going on,” she said, andher tone shifted, like she could no longer hide her emotions. “Rosie told me about it. Told me everything. Every single thing you did for her. All the dates. The record store? Alessandro’s? Therooftop?”
My eyelids fell shut at the memories. “I… I didn’t mean for this to happen, Lina. I didn’t want to hurt her. I’d never…” My voice cracked. “She’s… so much more than… She’sRosie.” My breathing turned labored, the tears I’d fought so hard to keep at bay rushing to my eyes, so the best I could manage was to repeat my words. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
My cousin remained silent for a long moment. So long that I thought that was all, that this was it, that she’d had her say and now I was left alone.
But then she sighed, and the sound was so sad that I almost severed the call myself. “Lucas…” She trailed off, and I could picture her shaking her head. “You couldn’t predict that you two would do all of this and she would fall head over heels in love with you?”
My world halted.
Just like when I’d spotted her in that terminal as she ran toward me. Or when I’d kissed her and I hadn’t even felt the water pouring down on us—hadn’t even cared. Or when she’d told me that she missed me when I ran to her apartment at one in the morning.
Only this time was different, because the gravity, the meaning, of what I was hearing was… too much.
She would fall head over heels in love with you?
My limbs felt numb.
My chest too tight.
I was no longer sure if I was sitting, standing, or lying on the floor. I couldn’t even tell if the phone had slipped off my hand until Lina’s voice somehow made it through the haze.
“You’re telling me,” Lina said, “that you took her to Zarato, managed to somehow convince the owner to let you use their greenhouse, hung lights, and installed a projector just so you could re-create the night she’d wished she’d met you, and you didn’t think this could happen?”
Lina’s words were barely registering in my head, merely gettingin and out, my mind still processing—stuck on—what she’d said earlier.
“You’re telling me that you even went through the trouble of baking her my wedding cake—and yes, Aaron told me he helped you with that, and trust me, he’s paid for keeping that little secret—that you could dance with her, and kiss her under the freaking rain like a modern-day Mr. Darcy, and you still thought none of that would make her love you?”
Lina gave me an opening to say something, but I was too slow.
“Are you telling me that she chased you down in an airport—”
“Lina,” I finally managed to speak.Pleaded.
She just waited for me to continue.
I hardly got my breathing on track before saying something, and that was probably why the words left me in a hard gulp of air. “She loves me? She said that? Rosie said that she’s in love with me?”
Seconds stretched into an eternity. “Lucas, are you joking right now?”
“Answer me.”
