Page 36 of Book People

Is that how it started? With a note in a book?

A shiver of excitement goes through me. Because if this is true and he brought her books with notes between the pages, then this is the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen. It also makes me desperate to know the answer to the other question: who was the woman?

I pick up my phone again and text what I’ve discovered so far to Sebastian.

We need to meet up to discuss

I add.

He’s typing a response and I watch my screen as the typing bubble appears then disappears. Appears then disappears. As if he can’t think what to say to me.

Finally, he settles on:

Later.

I stare at it. ‘Later.’ What does that mean? When the bloody hell is ‘later’? Does he not want to talk to me? Is that the problem? But even as I think that, I know. Of course that’s the problem.

Irritated, I toss my phone back down on the couch, trying to tell myself I’m not disappointed that he doesn’t want to meet. It’s late and I’m starting to second-guess myself. Did he really like that kiss? Or was it awful? Perhaps it was awful and that’s why he broke it off. That’s why he wanted me to leave. He couldn’t look me in the eye, couldn’t be straight with me and tell me I’m a terrible kisser. He didn’t know how to say it.

No, no. It can’t be that. He’s honest, I know it, and that kiss wasn’t terrible. He wouldn’t have continued to say that I was a problem if it was. Besides, those kinds of self-loathing thoughts are Jasper’s voice in my head, and I promised myself I’d stop thinking them.

I swallow and my head falls back against the couch. I close my eyes.

I feel his mouth on mine. Hot. The fever I tasted in that kiss now in my blood. My fingertips brush over my lips and it almost startles me because I hadn’t realised I’d even lifted my hand. My lips feel sensitised and raw.

What a bastard for doing that, for making me feel this.

I don’t know whether I hate him or whether I’m half in love with him.

I really hope it’s the former. Love is something I don’t want to tangle with again, and definitely not with him.

Later, after I drag myself to bed, I’m just on the verge of sleep when the phone at my bedside vibrates. I pick it up. It’s a text. From Sebastian.

I’m not sorry either.

Just like that, I’m wide awake.

Something tight in me releases. I know exactly what he’s referring to.

I stare at the phone a moment, unsure of how to reply. A ‘like’ seems weird, a ‘heart’ too much. A thumbs-up strange. I could send a heart eyes emoji, then again . . . maybe not. A kiss seems a little passive-aggressive. I’m tempted to send a saluting emoji – that would annoy him – but in the end, what I send is a basic text.

Good.

There’s another pause and then my phone vibrates again.

You taste like sunshine.

A wave of warmth goes through me, starting at my toes, flooding through my cheeks, a blazing heat.

I don’t know what to say to that. I literally have no words.

I shouldn’t respond, I really shouldn’t . . .

You go straight to my head.

I send it.

Then I turn my phone off.

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