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“Butyouare wonderful, so I’m—I’m asking if there’sany chanceyou want to take her to this.”
I had no idea, absolutelynoidea, that anything could flatter me this much.
My fucking throat hurts, this is so touching.
“Of course I want to,” I whisper. “Of course I do.” I hesitate. “You think she would want me to?”
Her glistening eyes widen with joy as well as disbelief.
Her whispered, “Are you kidding?” is almost a sob. Once again, her tears escape, and once again, she lets me take care of them. “You’re her hero.”
I feel like, right this very moment, my insides are being torn apart and remade into something better than what they were.
“God, girl,” I huff out.
And just like that, she’s embarrassed. “Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry. Wow. I must be—I must be overloading you.” She tries to step away from me.
I catch her around the waist and pull her even closer to me than she was. “You couldn’t overload me if you tried.”
She looks at me skeptically. “Yeah, right.”
“You really couldn’t.” More quietly, I explain, “This is just one of the greatest moments of my life, and I’m trying to process how awesome it is.”
Her skepticism softens away.
Even more quietly, I say, “You have no idea how good it feels to be important to you and her.”
For a few long seconds, she does nothing but gaze up at me.
Then she murmurs, “I think we understand perfectly how good it feels.” One corner of her lips curves up a little, somehow going gorgeously with her wet eyelashes. “We’d only ever been important to each other until we met you.”
I hate that, and I also love it.
It’s so wrong that their lives were the way they were, but if things had been different, I wouldn’t know them the way I do, and knowing them is a blessing.
“Thank you,” she whispers now. “For everything, Landon. For this and the costume stuff. For breakfast. For yesterday. Foreveryday.”
“You’re welcome,” I whisper back. “I sincerely thank you, too.”
Her smile grows enough to touch her eyes. “Well,you’rewelcome.”
I exhale slowly as I let my own eyes drift over her face. Considering how serious my affection for her has become, how exceptionally emotional I currently feel, and how damn beautiful she is, I’ve been too close to her for too long.
I drop the arm I’ve had around her this last minute, then take a step backward.
A hint of disappointment shows in her eyes.
I don’t do anything about it, though—there’s no way in hell I want to ruin this high I’m on, and the things I feel like doing about that disappointment would surely kick me in the ass.
“Want to talk to me?” I ask. I don’t specify what about because I’ll listen to anything she has to say, tell her anything she wants to know.
She feels the same way. “Yep. Want a snack?”
“Yep.”
She puts the flyer away, promising to talk to Rae about it soon. Then she walks to the pantry to see what snacks she has.
I look at where I took that leaf off of her, remembering the chill bumps that came up on her skin.
