Page 67 of Falling for You

She laughs, kisses the top of my head and continues taking away the tension that’s built up in my body. After explaining the meal prep app I’m helping design to her, she asks to see others that I’ve helped get up and running. The questions she asks are smart and thoughtful and make me grin.

Until meeting Chloe, I didn’t realize how few people I have in my life who I can talk with. It’s not that Ethan and I don’t talk, or any of my other friends, but someone to sit with and discuss what I have going on in life? No one.

Obviously not my family.

I never considered myself a lonely person. Alone, yes, but never lonely.

Suddenly I become shamefully aware of the way I was living my life. Different women night after night. Never allowing myself to form attachments. I may have had my reasons, and most of those may have been valid, but it was a cop-out. The coward’s way out so I wouldn’t put my heart on the line. No risk — but no reward, either.

Chloe opened my eyes and the weight of my gratefulness toward her hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

“Rex? Are you okay?”

I push down the emotions clogging my throat and force a smile that I hope looks real.

“I’m great.”

“You sure? ‘Cause it looks like you’re about to throw up. Was it the burgers? Oh crap. Am I about to get sick, too?” she gags. “I think I am.” Another gag. “Oh no. I’m about to throw up, aren’t I?”

“Chloe? I’m not sick.”

She relaxes immediately. “Oh. Okay.”

I chuckle. “No. Not okay. What the hell was that?”

“I have an abnormally large amount of empathy when people are sick. All I have to do is hear someone mention throwing up and I’m joining in the party.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Not even a little bit. It’s only throwing up, though. Colds and fevers, broken bones, that type of stuff was never an issue.”

“Oh so when someone had a broken bone, you didn’t get one too?” I joke.

“You know what I mean,” she chides, shoving one of her feet into my thigh.

“You’re so strange.”

“Right? It’s kind of endearing though.”

I’m so close to the final thread of self-control I have snapping. But I’m determined to keep it in tact. I won’t fuck this up.

“Everything about you is endearing, gorgeous.”

“There’s that charm again.”

“As long as you get that it’s only for you. Just now, when you thought I was going to throw up? That was because it all just hit me.”

“It?”

“My life. Up until you. You’ve made me realize what I was missing. Before you, I was going through the motions day to day but not really living. I know this is new and we still have a lot to learn about each other, but for the first time in a long time, I want to try.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You feeling anything like that?”

“I am.”

Chapter Sixteen

---