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I turn and a smile flickers on my lips.
A warm, fuzzy feeling stirs in my chest.
Parker.
He’s not that beat-up looking. Besides a thick, puffy bandage across his temple and a bunch of white gauze wrapped around one wrist, he looks damage-free. He’s smiling, and carrying a big cup with a straw in it. His playful eyes flit over to Ransom’s sign. “Back down, my man. This girl’s all mine.”
Ransom utters a grunt.
Parker crosses the room and sets down the giant cup. “I got you a cranberry juice.” He holds up his hand and Ransom gives him a high five.
When Parker turns to me, I feel sparklers light up in my heart.
He walks to me, and soon he’s so close I can make out faint speckles of blood on his t-shirt.
“Did you hear me?” I ask quietly.
His voice is just as low as mine. Gentle and intimate. “Yeah, I heard.”
“Did it sound stupid?”
He chuckles and reaches toward me. “How could a statistics nerd be stupid? You’re the smartest person I know, Gem.”
That makes me smile for real. “You said once I was too smart for my own good, though.”
“I take that back. You’re smart. You’re good. Period.”
“You really think so? I know I’m a lot to handle…”
“You’re a lot, in the best way.” His fingertips brush along my jawline. He rests his thumb under my chin. “I could’ve told you we were a match without all the numbers, you know.” His deep whisper sweeps through me, leaving my knees jelly.
I want him to kiss me, and I know he will.
His brown eyes carry that promise, and more promises, too.
“Yeah, but you were too busy insisting you had life all figured out.” I splay my fingers across his chest, over his dirty t-shirt.
“It’s a good thing you showed up to rescue me.”
“That was my plan, but I think maybe you rescued me, in the end.”
“This isn’t the end.” He guides my chin up as he lowers his mouth mine. Everything else I wanted to say to him suddenly flies the coop of my brain as we kiss.
I think I wanted to hear him say it: that he loves me.
I don’t need that anymore, though.
He’s saying everything to me, in this instant. As we kiss, he wraps his arms around me and holds me tight.
Chapter26
Gemma
I hold the green-and-red striped sweater up so that Carly can judge it.
She tilts her head to the side. “It’s notgarishenough.”
She yanks at the hem of her own holiday-themed sweater, a baggy thing with a big reindeer knitted into the front. The reindeer even has a big, red, puff-ball nose that sticks out an inch. “Thisis an ugly sweater.”
