Page 160 of Riding the Sugar High

With a long exhale, he turns to look at me. “I wrote my own list.”

“Hm?”

He takes a piece of scrap paper out of his jacket pocket. “I know we...That this whole thing doesn’t make sense in theory. We have nothing in common, we met a minute ago, and we have plenty of reasons to let this end now that you’re leaving...” He nods at the folded paper, and I pinch it from him. “It’s all there.”

I blink through the surprise, then read the items one by one using my phone’s flashlight. “You can’t drive. You kick during sex. Your boobs distract me.” I chuckle, my eyes roaming down. “You want to ride my bike. You won’t let me sleep.”

When I look up, a million questions on my tongue, he’s gazing at me.

“All the reasons I wouldn’t date you, down to the very last one.”

I exhale, reading the last line. “You’re leaving.” When I look up at him, sadness is painted over every feature of his face. “I don’t understand, Logan. Why are you showing me this?”

“Because they’re all right there. Ink to paper. And I’m happy to add more if you can think of any, but I can’t. I read them again and again, and they’re just...” His head shakes left to right, and my heartbeat picks up. “It’s not enough.”

I smile, and almost instantly, he does too.

He only smiles like that at me.

“It’s not?”

“No. I don’t care if it’s a bad idea or if we’re going too fast.” He glances down at the list. There’s nothing in there that’ll keep me from you.”

He points his index finger left and right as if he wants me to notice the valley again, with its hundreds of fireflies twinkling and buzzing around. “See where we are?”

“Yes?”

“It’s the most beautiful place I know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Definitely not the ER.”

My heart tumbles as I connect the dots.

So hedidbring me here to tell me those words. Of course, I already know he loves me. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have offered to give me so much money or told me to go, though it’s clearly not what he wants. If he didn’t love me, he wouldn’t have almost lost everything to protect me.

I’ve always wanted someone to tell me they loved me, but he’s shown it with his every action, and that’s much better.

“Primrose, I?—”

“I love you too,” I blurt, far louder than appropriate.

He half-smiles. “I haven’t said it yet.”

“You have. You’ve said it so many times.” I throw myself at him, and his arms quickly wrap around me and pull me onto his lap.

“If it’s okay with you, I’d like to say it out loud anyway.”

I nod against his chest.

“Primrose, you and me...It shouldn’t make sense, I guess, but it’s shockingly easy, even when it’s hard. Even when we argue. I like fighting with you more than getting along with anyone else. That’s how I know without a doubt that I love you.”

My heart is so full it might just burst. I will never understand how, in seventeen days, he became the most important person in my life, but I’m not questioning it. “I love you too.”

“So you shouted,” he says as his lips peck the top of my head.

I look up at the clear sky sprinkled with stars, then at the valley lit with fireflies. I’ll miss this place so much—not as much as Logan, but almost.

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