Page 56 of Falling into Place
She bent forward in a dramatic little bow. “I can’t take all the credit, though. Maybe just like, ninety percent.”
He laughed. “I’m just glad you agreed. To help me, I mean.” His hazel eyes assessed her face, and he hesitated a beat, as if debating what to say next. “It’s been more fun than I thought it would be.”
She hummed in victory. “Fashionisfun.”
“I don’t think it’s the clothes I enjoy,” he said quietly.
Her heart hiccuped, and she just stared at him. As she considered how unwise it might be to ask what he meant by that, he spoke again. “What do you think would have happened if we’d noticed each other back then?”
“Excuse me, don’t try to both-sides this. You were Brooks Martin. Not noticing you wasn’t an option.”
She couldn’t tell if he was pleased by that or not. “What did you notice?” he asked, a raw vulnerability in his gaze.
A strange sensation jump-started in her chest. She sifted through memories, pulling some off the dusty shelves and leaving others where they were. “You were ... charming. Bold. Spontaneous. Everything I wasn’t.”
He said nothing, but the hand he’d rested on the back of the couch shifted, brushing her hair back from her shoulder. His fingers touched her bare skin there, and her breath caught as a sizzle of fire rushed down her spine.
Was he ... interested in her? His steady, heated gaze said so. His breath seemed to come a little quicker, chest rising and falling in time with hers. His eyes dropped to her lips, then shifted back to meet her eyes. His brow furrowed and he worried his lower lip with his teeth, as if he were considering something, or holding himself back from it.
“What would you have done if I’d flirted with you like I did with Sasha’s other friends? If I’d asked you out?”
She opted for humor because the moment felt heavier than she was prepared for. “I’d have passed straight out, that’s what.” Though, she wasn’t altogether confident it wasn’t true.
“Come on.”
“The sexy, popular upperclassman and star of the basketball team noticing me, the shy, studious girl who cut her own hair to save money? That’s, like, the plot of every teenage rom-com.”
His brows pinched together, but her brain had trouble focusing on anything except his thumb moving back and forth across her skin. “I thought you said you didn’t want people to notice you. That you tried to stay under the radar.”
God, since when were there so many nerve endings at the edge of her shoulder? She swallowed. “There would have been ... exceptions.”
His gaze turned electric. “Would you have made an exception?” he asked, voice a little rough. “For me?”
“I ...” she started, but the words wouldn’t come.Yes. Absolutely.
Had he leaned closer? Had she? His eyes, nose, lips ... They didn’t seem as far away.
All the signs were there that he wanted to lean in, and while her body was here for it, her brain panicked, asking rapid-fire questions: What was happening? What did it mean? Was this a terrible idea? What the hell was she doing?
A shrill ringtone sliced through the air. She sucked in a startled breath, and Brooks jerked back like a fifteen-year-old with his hand on the school fire alarm. She blindly reached for her phone.
The display showed an incoming FaceTime call from Benjamin Wheeler, complete with his contact photo that was a candid of the two of them at Christmas last year.
Brooks’s eyes shifted from the screen to her face, and his expression shuttered. He stood. “I’d better go. Sorry I stayed so late.”
He was halfway to the door before she caught up to the movement and stood. Phone still vibrating in her hand, she silenced the call and tossed it back to the couch. She’d completely forgotten that Benjamin said he’d try to call her tonight.
The timing could not have been worse. Or maybe better ... because what was she thinking, almost kissing Brooks?
Still, she didn’t want it to be weird, and didn’t want to leave things on an awkward note. “No, you don’t have to ... I’ll call him later.”
He dug his keys out of his pocket, probably just so he didn’t have to look at her, because there’s no way that fancy Audi wasn’t push-start. “I have to be at the hospital early tomorrow.”
“On a Saturday?”
“It’s orientation for our new class of critical-care fellows. I’m leading it.”
“Oh, okay.” Fine, that was a decent excuse. “Hang on, at least let me get that shirt for you.”
