AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If our relationship is going to change, I’m going to have to be the one to change it.
“So, what are you waiting for?” Jace taps his gloves to mine and assumes a fighting stance.
“It’s different with Emmy,” I say. “She and I have a good relationship. A friendship.”
He rolls his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ruining it. That’s crap. Friends make the best lovers anyway. We’ve already established that she’s good for you, so if you aren’t telling her, it’s only because you’re afraid.”
I react to that and swing for the fences, cracking the mitt and sending his right hand flying.
He immediately takes the glove off and shakes his hand out. “Thanks for proving my point. . .” he says, wincing.
“Ah. Shoot. Sorry. . .uh, again.”
He’s one hundred percent correct. There’s all this pressure to make certain moments romantic.
And now that I know that Emmy is The Hopeful Romantic, I also know that she’s the one who originally told me to “double down” on the romance. Never mind that she also told me to “just tell her.” To forget the romance. That saying it out loud is the romantic thing. Did she mean it?
Her perfect guy isn’t me—but her emails yesterday suggest maybe she’s softened her stance. “Listen, I’m no romance expert, but I have binged every episode of that stupid podcast,” Jace says. “Trying to figure out how to woo your sister.”
I hold up a hand. “First, don’t talk to me about my sister. Second, did you just say ‘woo?’”
“That’s the word she uses, the lady on the podcast” Jace says, innocently, like that’s a reason to repeat it.
“I do have an idea,” I tell him. “But it might be stupid.”
“In love, there’s no such thing,” he says in a sing-songy voice.
I step out of the ring.
“Oh, we’re done?”
“Yeah, I don’t fight girls.” I chuckle.
“That’s cold, man,” he says. “Especially since we both know Clemons could take us both out in one round.”
I laugh. “You’re not wrong.”
Jace’s expression changes. “One day you’ll know how it feels to make an idiot of yourself for a woman.”
“Today might be that day.” I take off the gloves. “You wanna help me?”
“I’m in.” He steps under the ropes. “But if there’s a boombox involved or climbing up some kind of vine-covered balcony, then I’m out.”
“No boom box, no balcony” I say. “I’ve got something else in mind.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Emmy
The dock. I’m going back to the dock.
I step outside my parents’ house, and I breathe in the cool, crisp air. Definitely too cold to study outside at the pond. And yet, on similar nights like this in high school, I powered through, shivering and not feeling my toes for hours afterward, just because I wanted to be around Owen.
Tonight feels like that.
I’m just quizzing Owen so he can memorize firefighter things, but I’m nervous.
I’m nervous because it’ll just be the two of us, on our dock, and at some point in the evening, our eyes will meet and my stomach will swoop and there’s a slight chance that logic and reason will exit my brain in favor of fantasy.
