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He lowered his brow. “I didn’t text you.”
“You didn’t?” she asked. “Well, I wonder who it was, then?” As they reached his floor, she pulled the phone from her pocket, turning it over so she could read the screen. “How was work?” she asked, before her eyes registered what she was seeing.
“You’ll never guess who scored a brand new, million-dollar account,” he said proudly, turning the key in his door and pushing it open so she could enter.
She stared at the screen, only half listening to what had been said. The text message was from Finn. He’d put his phone number in her phone the second night she stayed with him, and it had been in there tormenting her ever since. She teetered between texting him and deleting it completely just about every day.
It read,Come by my place tonight. It won’t take long. I’ll be there until 8.
What could he possibly want? And why didn’t he just tell her to her face when she saw him? He’d been texting her as he walked away. Was that really easier than just talking to her?
“Hello? Are you listening?”
She jerked her head up. “Sorry, Asher. I’m sorry. What’d you say?”
The smile fell from his face. “Is everything okay?”
She exited out of the text message. “It’s just…it’s work.”
“Do you need to go?”
She bit her lip. “I think so.”
“What do you mean you think?”
As she slid the phone back into her pocket, she pulled him in for a kiss. “I’m sorry. I do have to go. I’ll try to come back, though.”
He nodded skeptically. “Okay…well, thanks for the coffee, I guess. You’re sure everything’s okay?”
She smiled, trying to reassure him while hiding the worry from her own face. What did Finn want? What was he going to say to her? What did she want him to say? “Everything’s fine,” she promised.
“Okay, be careful. I love you,” he said, walking further into the apartment.
She froze, his words slamming into her chest so hard they could’ve knocked her down. “What?”
He turned back around, his face ashen, jaw dropped open. “Oh my God. I…um…I didn’t—shit. It just slipped out.”
“You…you love me?” she asked, a lump rising in her throat. It had been so long since anyone had said those words to her. Did he mean them? Did she want him to?
He swallowed, running a thumb under his nose. “I…” A small smile crept onto his lips. “Yeah, Blythe, I do. I love you. I know it’s fast. I mean, two months is…well, it’s no time at all, but…I’ve never felt for anyone the way I feel about you. When I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you, and when I am with you, I’m thinking about how I never want you to leave.”
Her jaw fell open and she sucked in a breath, suddenly unable to form words.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he whispered, his voice showing more vulnerability than she’d ever heard from him. “But I wanted you to know.”
“Asher…I—”
“Go on to work,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “I’ll be here if you want to come back by.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Her chest was tight as she turned to walk away, her emotions conflicted. She should stay. She should tell him that nothing is more important than the three words he just said to her, but she’d be lying to him—and herself—if she said she wasn’t curious what Finn could want. And so, she walked down the stairs, listening to his door shut behind her and wondering if she was making the biggest mistake of her life.
* * *
Twenty minutes later,she was climbing up the last flight of stairs toward Finn’s apartment. Apprehension filled her gut, but she knew there was a small bit of hope in there, too. A bit of hope she was learning to hate with every passing step.
