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“I’ve missedyou,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.
My insides heat to molten lava. The way his grey eyes take me in, even virtually, make me want to physically tremble. “So, the cake,” remembering the reason we are video calling, desperately trying to distract from the moment we were slipping into.
He swallows and pushes his untamed hair from his forehead. “Right, the cake.”
“You know that movie you suggested?” Grayson says sleepily through the video call that we’ve been on for over an hour.
“Which one?”
“The one where the dad is super highly strung, and his daughter gets married to a guy called Brian?”
I smile. “Father of the bride?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“You didn’t like it?” I ask, wondering why he’s still insistent on listening to my recommendations when his favourites include all theFast and Furiousfilms.
“I cried. Like a baby.”
I sit up, my legs protesting at the stretch of my hamstrings from the speed I flung myself upright. “You cried?”
He nods but looks away briefly. “It was the wedding. When he was reflecting on his time with his baby girl. It just got me.” I see his throat swallow and he exhales a long breath. “I’m going to be a mess at Jess and Liam’s wedding next weekend.”
I want to hug him, to feel whatever emotion he’s feeling right now. These nightly video calls are becoming more and more like torture because I want more connection with him. I see him; all his flaws and his perfections and I’m beginning to want it all.
The fact that I’ll see him at the wedding next week just makes me wish it would come sooner.
“Hey Grayson,” I say, needing to tell him the truth about something I’ve been feeling for a while now. He turns his head to look at me, smiling softly. “I need you to know that I don’t hate you for what happened. I had so many feelings for you that I ignored, and I should’ve been honest, too. I’m sorry.”
His grey eyes widen, then immediately soften again. “You don’t have to apologise. I never ever meant to hurt you, and I know I did. I should’ve never—”
“Stop. There’s no point in ‘shoulda woulda coulda’. Maybe we both hurt each other. I’ve done a lot of reflection too and I’ve stopped putting so much pressure on being this perfect version of myself, and that includes the desperation I felt when we were together, trying to label whatever it was or wasn’t. I’ve also realised that it doesn’t matter if I have a list. The truth of it all is that I’m happy with being who I am, and I’ll take things as they come, instead of forcing things to happen. I’m sorry if you ever felt like I forced you into helping me with the list. It was never meant to be a shackling experience.”
“I never felt that way, Nora. I told you once before, your list wasn’t the reason I wanted to be around you.”
I shrug off the building emotion lodging in my throat. “Even so. I would’ve become far less interesting once that list had ended and so I’ve removed the pressure of it.”
His head shakes in apparent disbelief. “Nora, listen to me. You’re the most interesting person in every room.”
My heart melts in my chest, beating a gruelling rhythm. Any concerns I had about him not caring or not taking anything seriously melt away. It just took him a beat to get there.
“Can I ask you something?” His voice filters through my phone’s speaker, raspy and sexy, just like it always was.
“Of course.”
“A minute a go you said you had feelings for me, past tense. Does that… do you no longer have those feelings for me?” The layer of vulnerability in his voice has my throat constricting. We’ve been talking and for the last couple of weeks and frankly, I think I’m ready to talk about how we really feel too.
“I do have feelings for you. Big ones and they’re not past tense,” I admit, because although I was scared, he’s made me see that I don’t need to be scared all the time and neither does he.
He smiles, running his hand across his lips, drawing my attention to them. “That’s really good to hear. I’m glad because I have some pretty big feelings for you too, shorty.”
Grayson
“Dude, how you feeling?” I look at Liam who is packing to leave for the wedding venue tonight. I’m already packed and driving us both there, although we are staying off site—the venue is relatively small, and the bridal party needed all the rooms they had.
“Surprisingly calm,” he replies.
“Yeah? That’s good. You’ve got nothing to worry about. It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
