CHAPTER 18 #2
“But do you love him?” Raelynn’s superior look was like a checkmate, at least in her eyes. “Because I don’t think you do.”
Do you like him the way you liked me? Dalton had asked last Friday at the park, his eyes searching mine.
Because I don’t think you do. I stared at Raelynn, at the way her thoughts were written all over her face.
You don’t love him like I do, she said without saying.
I had to take care not to curl my hand into a fist and crush the cream puff.
“It’s none of your business how I feel,” I told her slowly. “I’m sorry that it worked out this way, truly, but… he chose me.”
“Because there was never a choice. You didn’t give him a choice. But you never do, do you?” Raelynn’s shoulders shook as she drew in a breath, her watery glare unwavering. “Not once in your life.”
You have me wrapped around your finger, Daisy, he’d said the other night, the words as soft as a confession.
We can unwrap you.
No, we can’t.
It suddenly became hard to swallow.
A tear finally rolled down Raelynn’s cheek, shining in the sun, and my stomach clenched at the sight of it. “I thought you were cooler than that, Daisy,” she muttered, and with that, she trudged forward.
Her shoulder collided with mine as she passed, causing me to stumble in my heels.
I didn’t fall, but the cream puff bounced out of my hand and onto the cobblestone walkway, immediately gathering grit.
Her heels clicked as she walked away—not toward Mimosa Morning, but away from it, toward the country club building.
I stared at the cream puff for a long moment.
In the warmth of the sun, I felt the gloomy darkness creep closer, even as the sound of Raelynn’s heels faded.
I couldn’t even pretend to be the good guy in her story—I had known of Raelynn’s feelings for Jamie before we decided on the fake relationship. And that was crappy of me.
If I were her, I’d hate me, too. And that was a thought that made me sick.
I bent down and picked up the cream puff, squeezing it in the napkin until all of the cream squished out.
Instead of going back to the brunch, I turned toward the main building.
My feet carried me forward, through the double doors and into the air-conditioned building of Alderton-Du Ponte.
I knew exactly which hallway to take, as if something tugged me there.
Jamie had his head bent over the book in his hand, reading the back cover.
His glasses slipped low on his nose as the sunlight streamed in through the window at his left.
His skin was fair, and the dark brown of his hair seemed lighter with the light threading through it.
The sharp angle of his nose was even more prominent, and in my mind’s eye, I couldn’t help but picture how the slope would feel as my pencil drew it.
Not as Kit. As Jamie.
My eyes traced his face over and over again to commit him to memory.
Jamie turned his head ever so slightly and only lifted his eyes, finding me immediately.
He looks at you like he wants to write about you, Dalton had said, but I wasn’t sure that was the case. I knew for a fact, though, that I was looking at him like I wanted to draw him. Because I did.
Jamie’s gaze dropped to the crushed napkin in my hand. “Did you bring me a treat?”
“Sorry. The cream puff didn’t survive the trip.” I dumped it into the trash can near the door.
Jamie eyed me closer as I walked over to him. “Need a breather from Mimosa Morning?”
My lungs burned as I nodded, trying to play it off.
“If you’re trying to hide, you’re doing a bad job at it.
” I scanned the library, pretending I wasn’t looking to make sure Raelynn hadn’t snuck her way in here before me.
“Not very secretive. If I were to have looked for you anywhere, it’d have been in the library. ”
“I used to hide out in random spots when I was younger. Away from all the people. My sister scolded me for it.”
“Nellie?”
“Destelle.” Jamie’s eyes followed me all the way until I stopped at the edge of his table, propping my hip against it. “She’d never take my book away, but told me I at least had to be around people.”
“People are overrated.”
“Some are.” Jamie tilted his head. “Some aren’t.”
I hadn’t seen him since Wednesday, when we’d gone to Downtown, and he’d driven me home. It was the first time that the first memory of that night wasn’t us dancing together—it was us in the car afterward. You have me wrapped around your finger, Daisy.
Jamie reached out, fingers gently grazing my hand where it hung at my side. “What happened?” he asked quietly, reading my expression easily.
I glanced around the library. The space was larger than the game room, where Nellie and I waited for Jamie after his book club the other week, but not by much. It was mostly a room for show, anyway. I doubted anyone other than Jamie came in here much.
Jamie, and apparently someone else. My voice was pouty. “What book are you and Raelynn reading?”
Jamie’s eyebrows slammed down. “What?”
“She said you were buddy reading a book together. That you rendezvous in the library at every event and talk about it.”
“We do not rendezvous.” Jamie gave a small sigh, leaning closer and swiping up my hand entirely this time. His fingers coaxed against mine, but didn’t fully entwine. “We started reading Romeo and Juliet at the beginning of the year. She’s only halfway. Halfway. Do you know how long that play is?”
I was guessing not very long. “So you’ll read romance books with Raelynn, huh? That’s it?”
Jamie didn’t reply this time, knowing he wouldn’t win.
I hopped up on the table he sat at, dangling my legs off. “It’s fine,” I muttered flippantly, giving my legs a little kick. “I’m not jealous.”
Jamie leaned his elbow on the table near my hip and propped his head in his open hand, looking up at me. The glint of the chandelier reflected a little off his glasses, and some of his wavy brown hair fell into his eyes. “Are you still drawing people you know?”
Are you still drawing Dalton? His counter to my question about Raelynn.
But was he asking for the same reason I was?
Was he asking because something itchy crawled under his skin at the thought?
“No.” I curled my fingers into a fist, fighting the urge to push his hair back.
I dropped my gaze to the book on the desk, clearing my throat.
“Is this another romance book? Mr. I Don’t Read Ro—”
I stopped, because when I opened to Jamie’s page, I finally saw his bookmark. It was a strange thought, that I’d never seen what he used as a bookmark before, but I was sure I hadn’t.
Otherwise I would’ve remembered his bookmark being a seven-armed octopus holding a knife and wearing a pair of glasses.
The drawing Jamie had asked for in April. The one that’d jump-started my love for drawing again after the rejection from NYU stopped my heart. I blinked at it, almost like I half believed it wasn’t real. “You’ve been using this as your bookmark?”
“I don’t always use it,” he replied quietly, looking at where it marked his book. “Sometimes I use a napkin that has two ice creams on it. Or a piece of paper from a calculus worksheet with a decapitated person on it.”
“You kept them?”
“I keep all the things you draw me.”
Staring down at him, the butterflies in my stomach hummed to life. More questions popped into my head, questions that’d been growing in fervor over the last few weeks.
What are we doing, Jamie?
Am I the only one that feels the shift?
I looked down at our hands, the way Jamie’s long fingers traced over my stubby ones. This was it, I decided. I wasn’t going to linger in the unknown anymore. I wasn’t going to let my thoughts bat themselves back and forth like a demented pickleball game.
I pulled in the barest breath that quivered past my lips. “At Lydia’s party,” I began. “Why did you kiss my neck? Why didn’t you just… kiss my… mouth?”
Why didn’t you kiss me? I wanted you to kiss me. I don’t think I’ve stopped wanting it since.
Jamie’s fingers stopped tracing mine. “I—I don’t know.”
I was toeing a different sort of line, not the college demarcation line, and this one felt different. More important. More forbidden. “Is it because you think you’d be bad at it? That people would see right through it?”
“No.” The one word was low, dragged from Jamie’s throat. “I think I’d kiss you just fine.”
Now my heart stopped beating altogether.
This is it. This was going to be the moment things shifted, where things went from friends to fake dating to more, and there’d be no turning back.
Jamie, I like you, I could imagine myself saying.
I don’t know exactly when it changed, but along the way, I started thinking of not pretending.
I’ve thought of kissing you more times than I could count, and I want to see if you’re right, if you’d kiss me just fine.
I drew in a breath, but Jamie cut me off first. “Not here,” he whispered, gaze darting worriedly to the doorway. “Not—where anyone can hear.”
Blood roared through my ears, and I was dizzy from how fiercely my heart had been beating. Just tell me, I wanted to insist. Tell me what you were about to say. But he already pulled his hand back, taking the wave of warmth with him as he reached for his book again. Conversation closed.
I could’ve sworn I saw a shadow shift in the hallway, as if someone had been peeking in and quickly ducked out of sight. What if Jamie was right, and someone was listening in? Raelynn hadn’t gone back to the garden party—what if she decided to seek out Jamie?
I slid off the table, coming around the backside of Jamie’s chair. Without hesitating, I wrapped my arms around his torso, leaning in to set my chin on his shoulder. His breath hitched, the sound faint in my ear. “How’s your book?”
Jamie didn’t answer, not for a long beat. “Daisy.” His voice was strangely strangled.
I lowered my words to a whisper, coming as close to his ear as I could without touching. “You’re right. I think Raelynn’s in the hallway.”