Page 42 of Don't Go Faking My Heart

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine!"

"I asked if you were okay." He half-smiles.

"Oh, I thought you said 'what's wrong.'"

BECAUSE WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

"All right, so nothing's wrong. But something's off."

Our friends have all left the conference room to take a call or go to the bathroom or whatever else, but I still drop my voice as I blurt out the truth.

"You know that feeling when someone's taking a picture of you and you don't know what to do with your hands?"

"Yeah?"

"That's how this feels!"

"Come again?"

"I feel so awkward! How am I supposed to act?"

"With your hands?"

"No! With me? Us? We kissed!"

Rusty's gaze steadies me more than his hand. "How do you want to act?"

"Normal!"

"What is normal?"

"Us hanging out and laughing and me being goofy and you putting up with it?—"

"I don't 'put up’ with you, I l—" he stops himself, and he has that pained look on his face again.

"This is what I'm talking about! We're being awkward! You're censoring yourself, and I know something's upsetting you, but you won't talk about it, and you're like this ultra-confident, smooth as jazz version of yourself when you're faking, and I don't even know how to process that that guy exists. And that kiss!"

"What about it?"

"I've never been kissed like that! And now I'm wondering how you learned to kiss like that. Do you have like eighty past girlfriends? Did you major in making out? Is that a thing? How do we come back from this?"

Rusty takes my shoulders and drops his face so it's eye level with mine, but I can't meet his eye because WEIRDNESS. "Hey," he says, his voice doing that voicy thing where it's both insanely sexy and also totally unaware of its sexiness. "Can I give you a hug?"

I nod and let him fold his arms around me. He breathes, and my pulse may be like a rabbit on steroids, but his isn't exactly slothlike. For some reason, knowing that he has nerves, too, is calming rather than off-putting.

Also, I'm such a hug person that his strong arms are exactly what I need to chill. Add in that eucalyptus and mint smell of his shampoo, and I'm practically on a spa retreat. The frantic ping-ponging in my brain slows to a relaxing screensaver-like motion. It's like Rusty has helped all the purposelessly bouncing fragments band together to focus on one meaningful movement:

This hug.

"I have something important I want to tell you, but I don't want to say anything if it's going to make it harder for you," he says. "Will it?"

"I don't know. What are you going to say?"

He exhales slowly. "You are the most important person in my life."

My screensaver freezes.

"All I want to do is protect your heart. I'm not going to do anything that puts you in jeopardy of being hurt again."

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