Page 121 of A Pizza My Heart

“No!” She tries to push away from me, but I tighten my grip so she can’t go anywhere. “I said,Thank you.”

My brows knit together. “For what?”

“For my house. For saving my business. For loving me even when I didn’t love you back. For coming back.”

“I came back for you, you know. I mean, sure, a part of it was me tucking tail and running, but it was also you. I couldn’t stay away, not when a piece of my heart was here with you.”

She pushes up on her tiptoes, letting her lips linger on mine.

“I love you,” she says against them.

And I feel it.

Everywhere.

“Say it again.”

“I love you.”

I smirk against her. “I know, Birdie. I know.”

A Slice of the Future

Foster

“If you don’t move that ass of yours, I will smack it.”

“I’m confused.” Wren pokes her head around the doorjamb, a mischievous smile on her lips. “Is that a threat? You…beatingmycheeks?”

I laugh as she ducks back into the bathroom she’s been in for the last twenty minutes. “Apparently not anymore, but we do need to get going. Wait a damn minute—why are you not in more of a rush? It’syourbest friend’s baby we’re going to see.”

“I want to look cute!”

“For who? The baby? Pretty sure the little alien doesn’t care what you look like.”

She comes charging out of the bathroom, pointing one of her ten thousand makeup brushes at me, pointy end out. “Don’t you dare call that precious angel an alien. He is perfect, I tell you—perfect! You leave his misshapen head out of this!”

I smirk at her, and she growls at me.

“What!”

“Are you really going to yell at me right now with one eyebrow on?”

“Oh!” she squeaks out, darting back down the hallway as fast as she can. “Shut up!” she hollers as my laughter follows her.

“Hurry up!”

“Give me five more minutes, you impatient bunghole.”

“Did you just call me a bunghole?”

“Yes!” She slams the door closed, and I’m nearly certain she’s flipping me off, presumably able to hear me laughing.

I flop down on the couch, settling in for the next ten minutes—no way she’ll be done in five—and hit play on the paused episode ofThe Officethat fills the screen. I don’t know why I bothered pausing it like I haven’t seen it ten billion times over the last year at Wren’s insistence.

She’s obsessed with the show, and since we’re now living together,I’mobsessed with it too.

After Wren finally admitted she loved me, we stopped pretending, and everything between us became very,veryreal.

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