Page 96 of Pick Me
Because otherwise Knox wouldn’t let me live it down.
Knox!
I dove for my phone to call him, to text him, to commission a skywriter—did they have those in Vermont? If not, I’d import one—so I could get him a message.
I loved him.
I. Loved. Him.
And he could fight it and fight it and fight it, but I was willing to risk everything I had that in the end, after he’d crunched the numbers and analyzed the data, he’d recognize the rightness of it.
We were meant to be together.
The phone had fallen down on the floor when the car slid, and the first time I lunged for it, I nearly strangled myself with my seat belt. I took off my belt and dove across the console searching for it, ass in the air and head in the wheel well, when suddenly my door was wrenched open and big, strong hands were reaching for me.
“Gage?Gage, baby.Oh, fuck. Are you hurt? Stay still, don’t move. I’m calling an ambulance.” His hands pawed at my legs and ass, any part of me he could reach, assessing me for damages and ready to knit me back together himself if he had to.
“Knox? Oh, God, you’re here. Let me up. Let me up! I’m fine. I promise. I’m not hurt. I was just looking for my phone.” I held the device up triumphantly. “I was going to call you. How did you…?” I shook my head. “How are you here?”
Knox dragged me from the car and set me on my feet in the snowy street like I weighed nothing. His big hands patted me through my down jacket like he couldn’t quite believe I was actually alright. “I got your message. I… I tracked you with the Pond App. I was going to find you. Bring you back home to the orchard or offer to take you to Boston myself if you really wanted to go, but then… “
His questing hands reached my face, and he cupped my jaw gently, running his thumbs over the freckles on my cheeks the way he sometimes did. His green eyes were huge and shining with an emotion that would have made my heart speed up if it hadn’t already been sprinting like crazy. “When I saw your car tilted off the road, and you upside down like that, I… I…”
“I know,” I said, trying to soothe him as much as I could, despite my own jangling nerves. “But I’m okay. Everything is okay.”
“I’ve never been so scared,” Knox admitted. “I thought maybe I was too late.”
“No.” I shook my head wildly. “Not too late. I’m not going to Boston. I mean, Iwas, but then that cow leaped out into the road like a fucking panther, all teeth and claws andarrrrgh, and it scared the shit out of me, and I thought I might die, and I ran off the road, and I decided I was being an idiot and I needed to head back. I needed to find you and tell you that I…” I took a deep, shuddering breath and wrapped my hands around his wrists, holding his palms against my face. “That I love you.”
His lips parted in shock, but I kept talking because I needed him to hear me before he pulled away. “No, no, listen. I know you don’t feel the same way just yet. And I know you don’t want to make promises you can’t keep because you don’t want to let me down. But it’s too late to protect me, okay? So don’t do that thing where you’re gonna walk away so I can save myself because I don’t need saving. I love you. I’m in this. A hundred percent. And I…I pick you, Knox Sunday. In the apple orchard of life, you are my Seek-No-Further. And I love every grumpy, loving, sexy, protective, overopinionated, adorable, infuriating, encouraging, gorgeous, dumbass bone in your body. And it’s okay if you don’t pick me back yet. Because I have faith enough for the both of us. You are the man I want, and—”
I ran out of air and had to suck in another breath… and that was when he kissed me.
Knox’s lips molded to mine as he pushed me back against the side of the car, and his mouth moved against mine—gently at first, like I was a beautiful, precious thing, and then more forcefully, like I was a beautiful, precious thinghe’d almost lostand he needed to claim me.
“I love you,” he said the instant he pulled back. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, ’cause you know I love when you talk, but I need you to know that. I pick you, too, Gage Goodman. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to have you in my life, but I willalwayspick you.”
I lifted on my tiptoes, wrapped my arm around his neck, and kissed him, too, loving the feel of his beard against my lips, his hands on my face, his heart beating against mine.
When he finally lifted his head, I felt dizzy, like I’d been shaken up in my own personal snow globe, and I grinned up at Knox’s gorgeous face, just fucking delighted with the surprises life had had in store for me this day.
“I regret to inform you,” I said with as much fake-sadness as I could muster, “that this entire loving scene was precipitated by acow.”
I glanced to my left, and Knox glanced to his right. The cow still stood in the road, a lonely witness to our love.
Knox whistled low. “Justlookat the fangs on that thing. It’s a miracle you survived.”
“Did I mention the part where you’re infuriating?”
He smirked. “You mentioned the part where you love me.”
I shook my head. “Sadly, the cow factor invalidates this whole proceeding,” I informed him. “In order for this love declaration to be binding, we’re gonna need to reenact this.Sanscow.” I shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”
Knox lifted an eyebrow and wrapped his arms around my waist. “I could get behind that, I suppose… as long as we can do it without cars sliding off the road.” He shivered just a little and lowered his head to kiss me again before pressing our foreheads together. “In fact, without snow, period.”
“I don’t know, I kinda like the snow,” I said softly, leaning back in his embrace so I could watch the flakes fall dreamily around us.
Knox stared at me for a beat, heat kindling in his eyes. “Or we could find shelter and try it withoutclothes.”
