Page 51 of Heartthrobs Don't Date Wallflowers
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“The trusting part? It’s very easy.”
“Says you, Ms. I-have-a-hit-list-and-you’re-on-it.”
“Oh, thanks for reminding me! I’ve gotten sloppy with keeping up with it. I better book in your execution soon.”
“Please make it before next Wednesday, I have a test I really don’t want to study for.”
“And you think being killed will be enough of an excuse to get out of it?” I asked teasingly. “Because I don’t know about your parents, but I think mine would still expect my ghost to show up.”
“You make a good point,” he said. “But I don’t livewith my parents, so I bet I could get away without them even knowing.”
I tilted my head. That was new information. He’d mentioned before that his sister went to boarding school, but he didn’t, so that explanation was out. Maybe it was something to do with why he lived with Luca. Since he mentioned going to school with his brothers, I’d assumed Luca moved in with his family, but maybe it was the other around. For some reason, Not Zesty moved in with Luca instead.
“If you knew me,” I said slowly, trying to keep it light, “you’d know I’m dying to know the deal with your whole living situation.”
The pause was long and I thought I might have gone a step too far. But then he laughed softly and said, “Well, if you knew me, you’d know I’m not great at explaining complicated things.”
“Come on,” I whispered. “Try?”
He sighed. “Okay. Well… About a year and a half ago, I moved out of my parents house for this… thing.”
“A thing?” I asked. “Gee, yeah, that clears it up.”
He laughed again. “Sorry. It’s hard to explain. It’s like… like I went to boarding school or camp or something. But only for a few weeks. And then that thing flipped my life upside down. I never moved home after that. Now, I live with four of my best friends, and our guardian. When I told you about my brothers the other day, I was actually talking about my friends. I just didn’t want to have to explain it all.”
I was still struggling to follow alongwith what he was talking about. What could have happened that changed his life so much that he had to move away from his family?
“Flipped upside down in a… good way?”
He let out a heavy breath. “A very good way. Crazy. But good.”
“And what about your sister?” I asked. I grabbed the penguin squishmallow that was laying on the bed beside me and hugged it to my chest. Poppy had given it to me for Christmas last year and every time I missed her, I liked to hug it. Even mentioning his sister was enough to make my heart ache for her a little. She was only a couple hours’ drive away but it might as well have been across an ocean. At least she was coming home for a visit this weekend.
“She’s my actual sister,” he confirmed. “And she is actually at boarding school. In case you were doubting that part of the story too.”
I grinned to myself. “I wasn’t but I appreciate the confirmation. And here I thought you might secretly be a spy or something, with all these mysterious family details.”
“If you knew me, you’d know I’m not nearly that interesting.”
“Well, that’s disappointing,” I teased, shifting on my bed. “If you knew me, you’d know I could totally handle it.”
“Yeah well, if you knew me, you’d know…” His voice went soft and he cleared his throat. “You’d know I’m in love with you.”
My brain short-circuited.
My heart stopped beating.
My face froze.
Every logical part of my brain screamed that I needed to respond, like, now. I should probably say something sweet, or romantic, or at least remotely coherent. Something that would tell him he wasn’t alone in this—that maybe I was feeling the same way. But instead? My mouth might as well have been glued shut.
Just when I thought that I could maybe force some sort of noise, he said, “You don’t have to respond now. Actually, maybe it’s better if you don’t. But I needed you to know.”
Cue the weird, half-choked sound that came out of me—somewhere between a gasp and a hiccup—that he somehow took as a goodbye.
“Goodnight, princess,” he murmured, and before I could blink, the line went dead.
