Page 61 of I Wanna Text You Up

His eyes fall to slits. “Are you making up silly reasons in your head again? Before it was we couldn’t be roommates because I used to date Delia, and now…oh shit.” The proverbial light bulb goes off. “This is because of Delia, right? We can’t kiss because of her and what happened in your past. You’d feel like yourex.”

“In a way,yes.”

“You’re not him—we’renot them. Delia and I are over. We’ve been over. There’s nothing left there. I don’t see the harm in moving on when she hastoo.”

I straighten my back and meet his heated gaze head on. “Because it’s so much more than that Caleb. You’re her ex. I’m her best friend. There are just some lines you don’tcross.”

“Ohbullshit.”

“Excuseme?”

“Did you fart? I said: bull…shit.”

“Caleb—”

“I bet you could call Delia up right now and ask her if she has a problem and she’d say no.” He grins, and it’s almost sinister. “As a matter of fact, I’ll doit.”

He reaches into his back pocket and I lunge at him like a lunatic, swatting at the phone in hishand.

“No! Caleb! Stop it rightnow!”

He snakes an arm around my waist and brings me in close to him. “Tell me then, Zoe. Tell me the real reason you don’t want to dothis.”

My heart begins to work overtime with the way he’s watching me. It’s like he can see right through me, down to the very thread that holds metogether.

I both love and hate how it makes mefeel.

“I’m scared, Caleb. I don’t want to like you. I don’t want to do that Delia…but I can’t help the attraction I feel toward you. You’re like this magnetic field that’s pulling me in. I don’t know you well enough to decide if I want inside or if I want off thefield.”

He releases me and I take a step back, noticing when he slips his phone back into hispocket.

“How about this: let’s be friends, no strings attached. If we kiss, we kiss. If something more comes of this, then it does, but I don’t see why we should tiptoe around whatever this is for the sake of what-ifs.”

“I…”

Can I do that? Can I just go with the flow on this? I’m usually so laid back about relationships and guys, but something with Caleb is different—and it goes beyond him andDelia.

I do want to get to know him better—as friends, aswhatever.

“I can dothat.”

“Wecan dothat.”

“Just, like, don’t make itweird.”

He lets out a choked laugh. “Me?I’mgonna make it weird?Riiiight.”

“Yep. You.” I pick up my discarded glove, playing it cool, because we both know it would be me that made it weird before he did. “Now help me load this crap into my car. You’re buying melunch.”

* * *

“Okay,seriously, you are a stupid amazingcook.”

Caleb lifts a shoulder, like the meal he just whipped up was no big deal. “Iknow.”

“And you learned all that howexactly?”

“We had about three working channels, one being this old cooking station. That’s where I learned a good portion of it. The rest was through trial anderror.”

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