Chapter 36
Duffy
I watched as he stood and left the restaurant.
I sat there, speechless and in shock, as the crowd of hungry people waiting for tables parted and let him through. They smiled, obviously charmed by him and the romantic little scene he’d just set, and I couldn’t stop my brain from wreaking havoc in response to the shock.
I stared into space, his words ricocheting around in my head.
Is that supposed to make this better? Because it doesn’t, Duff. You being my friend was the best part of it all.
The best part of it all.
I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you or making you feel like you weren’t worthy, but how can I regret the stupid stunt that allowed me to get to know you?
I cleared my throat and reminded myself that he deserved my anger. He’d lied to me.
I do love you, Duff, even if that pisses you off.
Well, it did.
It did piss me off, dammit.
“Wait!” I shot out of my chair and rushed after him, pushing through the crowded entryway to reach Connor before he was gone. “Connor!”
I got through the door in time to see him way ahead of me, almost at the end of the block.
“Connor Cunningham!” I yelled, but he was too far away to hear me.
So I started running.
Suddenly I was hightailing it down the sidewalk, dodging other people who were walking as I ran toward him.
“Wait!” I shouted, and then everything kind of happened in a blur all at once.
I got close enough to almost touch him, so I reached out in hopes of stopping him. But he turned at that very moment, just as my foot landed wrong on a sidewalk grate.
The world fell into slow motion as he turned around and his blue eyes met mine in surprise.
As I stumbled and my forward momentum accelerated.
As I went airborne, my body colliding with his before gravity brought us down.
As I laid him out, essentially tackling Connor to the ground.
The slow motion came to a jarring stop when we landed—hard—with my body crushing his into the pavement.
“Oh my God!” I shrieked, looking down at him as our bodies came to a stop. “Are you okay?”
Instantly, I was aware of the fact that he’d just endured a brutal tackle the night before and that a stupid off-day injury could completely destroy his career.
“Is your head all right?” I asked. “Your back?”
I scrambled to sit up and get my weight off him, but I realized that his hand was wrapped around my back, holding me in place.
“I’m fine,” he said, the muscle in his jaw jumping. “You yelled for me to wait, and now I’m definitely waiting. What’s up?”
What’s up?
“You can’t say ‘What’s up?’ like that,” I said, shaking my head, irrationally angry. “Like you’re asking me what I did with my morning when in reality you just said you love me.”
“Is that why you tackled me? Because of what I said?”
“I didn’t tackle you,” I snapped. “I tripped while trying to stop you.”
“Well, I’d say you succeeded,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“And it’s just so, so…so ridiculous that you’d say those words to me. Like, how dare you?”
“Why does it make you mad?” he asked, looking genuinely confused. “I can understand not feeling the same, but why does it make you so angry? I’m allowed to love you, Duff, even if you don’t love me back.”
“That’s what’s so wrong,” I said, feeling a sharp pain in my chest. I missed him so much while at the same time I wanted to kill him.
Which also pissed me off. “You’re dropping the big L-word in this really vulnerable way, like poor Connor is heartbroken and emotional, when it’s not like that at all and it’s unfair that you’re hijacking my emotions.
You’re not allowed to steal my heartbreak and paint it as yours when you’re the one who—”
“Hijacking your emotions?” he interrupted, his face unreadable as his eyes searched mine intently. “Does that mean…?”
I wanted to be elusive and coy, I wanted to hang on to my anger, but I couldn’t.
So I only nodded, blinking fast so he didn’t see me cry stupid tears.
That made him sit up, but he still managed to hold me against him as he rose to a sitting position on the busy sidewalk. “You love me?”
“I mean, kind of,” I said neutrally—as neutrally as I could while crying—as if it weren’t the first time I’d ever said that to anyone I wasn’t related to.
“You kind of love me?” he said loudly, his mouth splitting into a huge grin. “Even after I was the biggest asshole?”
“What—are you trying to talk me out of it?” I said, every cold part of me thawing as he smiled at me like I was his sun and his moon.
“No,” he said, raising a hand and stroking his finger over my cheek. “But I’m terrified that I’m misunderstanding and that you still hate me.”
I shook my head. “I never hated you.”
“You literally said, ‘I hate you,’ ” he said around a laugh.
“But there’s a thin line between love and hate, right?”
“That’s right, there is.” He pressed his forehead against mine, and his eyes were all I could see. “So you love me.”
I swallowed and let my eyes close, breathing in the closeness of him. “So I love you.”
Our lips met, and all my pent-up emotions went into the kiss, feeling every bit of love and need and pure joy in his arms. The rest of the city—the world, the planet, the universe—disappeared as he kissed me in the middle of the sidewalk as if no one else existed.
As if I was his everything.
And a couple hours later, when we finished our impromptu White Castle brunch at the Commons (making out on a city sidewalk can make you hella hungry) and headed back home, I knew he was mine.