Page 87 of Run, Run Rudolph
Realizing I’d basically leapt from us kissing a few times to suggesting I move in with him, I dipped my head, blushing.
“My door is always open,” he said calmly. So calmly, it made me look at him twice. It almost felt as though he was serious about that semi-invitation.
“I can’t move in with you,” I protested, feeling slightly panicky at the idea that he might actually be serious. That Haden and I might move way too fast on something very deep, intimate and real.
“Why not?”
He seemed so serious. Weren’t there steps between where we were and moving in together?
I started babbling. “Your family won’t survive the whiplash. Plus, about eight million single women in the county would make voodoo dolls of me, and I’d be dead within a week.”
He chuckled. “You’re obsessed.”
“Am not.”
He grabbed my hand, smiling warmly. “Are you jealous?”
“Of the HAGs?” I scoffed. “No.”
“HAGs?”
“Haden Appreciation Group. Women with fake animal emergencies, vying for your undivided attention.”
“HAGs,” he repeated, this time with amusement, his thumb tracing very distracting circles over the back of my hand. “How long have you been secretly crushing on me, TM?”
“I’m not. I haven’t.” I sucked in a breath. Haden was my safe space. I could tell him anything. And if I couldn’t, it was best to know now. Not later. Not after my heart was deeply invested.
I sighed and rolled my eyes at him. “Do you really want to know?”
He’d edged his chair closer to mine, his five o’clock shadow giving his look a slightly rugged and dangerous edge.
“Since the first day of grade one.”
“What?” He looked confused.
“When I fell and scraped my knee.”
He turned his head, eyes still on me. “I think I vaguely remember that.”
“I fell and started to cry. You came and dried my tears, retied my shoe, and found a teacher to bandage me up.”
“I did that?”
“Yes.”
His smile spread like liquid warmth. “And you started crushing on me then?”
“I never really stopped. Well…” I waved a hand through the air. “Maybe for a bit.”
His eyes shuttered, and he leaned away ever so slightly. “Kade.”
“He made me think you found me?—”
“A pest. You weren’t.”
“I know that now.”
We were silent for a moment. It wasn’t quite awkward, but there was a tentative vulnerability in the air we were both afraid to disrupt.
