Page 110 of Wish You Were Mine
“Only two years,” she said. “I moved into the dorms a few months after I turned eighteen.”
“And your dad’s been president for, what—five years?”
“Yep.” She nodded. “Since I was sixteen.”
Which meant that I’d been twenty-three when she was sixteen.
That one realization shouldn’t have hit me the way it did, since theoretically I’d known how old she was.
But yeah…with the different scenarios I’d had in my head for how tonight might pan out…it suddenly felt almost wrong.
“When’s your birthday again?” I asked. “You told me you were almost twenty-two, right?”
“I’ll be twenty-two in May.”
“Geez.” I shook my head, letting out a breath.I really am trying to rob the cradle, aren’t I?
There was a small pause. Then her voice drifted forward, calm and knowing. “Trying to figure out exactly how much younger I am than you?”
“Maybe.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight,” I said. “I’ll be twenty-nine in March.”
“So…” She did the math quickly. “You’re just over seven years older than me.”
“Yeah.”
She was younger than Callie would’ve been. And somehow that hit me harder than the age gap itself.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and drew in a breath, wondering—for the hundredth time—what I was doing.
“You’re feeling weird about hanging out with me now, aren’t you?” she asked. Not accusatory. Just…quietly disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” I said, glancing in the mirror again. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like that.”
“But youarefeeling weird?” she asked, her voice even softer now.
I hesitated before nodding. “A little. I just…” I sighed. “I don’t want to be that guy. The one who crosses a line he shouldn’t.”
She didn’t respond. When I looked back again, her gaze was down, fingers tugging at the edge of her sleeve.
And just like that, the spark I’d been so drawn to—her fire, her lightness—dimmed.
And I hated that I was the reason for it.
I slowed the car at the next intersection, sitting with the weight of everything I wasn’t sure how to say.
“Maybe I should just take you home tonight,” I finally said.
There was a pause. Long enough for my chest to tighten.
Then she nodded once. “Okay.”
No teasing. No protest.
Just quiet resignation.
