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I stopped walking to catch my breath. I wasn’t making the same mistake I had with Alec… right? I knew Tara liked me. If anything, she was the one who’d wanted something serious while I’d initially just wanted to experiment. I wasn’t going to scare her off by wanting more than sex. That was the page she’d been on from the start—I would be telling her I was ready to join her there. This could be the best chance I’d ever had to actually settle down with someone.
“I like you a lot,” I said slowly. “I wanted to ask you about where we stand. Where do you see this going?” Not quite the way I’d imagined myself confidently telling her I wanted to be her girlfriend, but it would have to do.
The problem was that she wasn’t responding. “At one in the morning?” she finally said.
“I’m sorry about the time.” I shifted on my feet, staring at a lone snowflake as it drifted to the ground. “I just feel like, you know, I’m not sure what we’re doing, and I wanted to know what was on your mind…”
“Sleep,” she said teasingly. “What’s on yours?”
I swallowed. “I think that might be obvious, given that I’m calling you at one in the morning.”
“Is it?” She paused. “I want you to tell me.”
She was really going to drag this out of me, wasn’t she? That meant she was on the same page, though. Didn’t it? “All of this took me by surprise,” I said slowly. “It’s become something more than I ever expected. More than I ever dreamed. I thought I just wanted to experiment, but now… Now…”
“What, Chelsea?” Her voice was low and husky.
“I think I want a girlfriend.” Saying the words out loud made my heart pound. “No, I know I do.”
“Any old girlfriend?” she pressed.
Why was she doing this to me? I shivered as cold sweat beaded under my winter jacket. “You, Tara. I want you to be my girlfriend. And I want to be yours.”
“All mine?” she purred. “I think I can handle that.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Youcan?”
“I didn’t expect any of this either, Chelsea. I thought I had to be crazy to even spend any time with you. But somehow, this fits. My darkness, your lightness. We complement each other. You make me a better person, and I think—without flattering myself—I do the same for you.”
The street was empty. No one would see if I pumped my fist in the air—so I did. “You do,” I breathed. “You really do.”
“So we’re together?” She sounded as nervous as me. “Like a couple thing?”
I couldn’t get the dopey grin off my face even if I wanted to. “Exactly like that.”
17
Tara
It was hard to believe I had a girlfriend—much less that it was Chelsea. I’d always found it so hard to bond with other people beyond a surface level. Only my chosen family really got to see past the front I had up.
While I’d often considered dating, some deep part of me had never actually thought I’d end up with somebody. It seemed like that kind of happiness was reserved for other people—better people than me. Besides, I never thought anyone would be able to handle my fucked-up past and the darkness inside of me.
And then there was Chelsea. And she was… amazing. I could talk to her about anything, and she not only didn’t judge, but she actively tried to understand. When most people would’ve ran, she listened instead. She shone her light into the depths of my soul, making me glow for the first time in my life. Not to mention she was sexy as hell, with a brilliant smile and an ass that refused to quit.
My friends were over the moon for me. “She seems really sweet,” Nia said over a group video call. “I can tell there’s something special about her.”
“Who would’ve thought?” I still remembered how quickly I’d dismissed her when I first met her. “She comes across as this ditzy airhead, but there’s so much more to her.”
“I can’t wait to meet her properly,” Kyle said, waggling his eyebrows on the screen. “As in, when you two aren’t sticking your tongues down each other’s throats.”
I refused to let him embarrass me. It had been a moment of passion, and that was that. “I’ll definitely introduce you. Maybe you can all visit again at Christmas or New Year’s.”
“You think you’ll still be together by then?” Trevor asked.
I blanched. “It’s less than a month away. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“You never know,” he said. “She thought she was straight until, like, an hour ago. Things might not last.”
