Page 98 of Drawn Together
“Me?” I look down to make sure I’m reading the words right.
“Obviously,” she snorts.
I look up to a proud Lennon standing next to her very wolf-looking boyfriend with her phone recording me. “You did this?”
“Not me.” She shakes her head and points over my shoulder.
I wish I could bottle up this exact moment right here. That I could squish it into a frame and set it on my nightstand and keep it forever. Directly behind me is Fletcher dressed as Erik from Phantom of the Opera. Black tux, crisp white shirt, deep red vest with those fancy little embroidered details that I knowhe has complained about at least twice since putting this on. Behind him is this long, dramatic cloak that flares with each step he takes closer to me. Lennon was wrong. It’s my jaw they are going to have to sweep off this floor. A faint smile curves his lips, only one half of my favorite dimples shining, while the other is covered by the porcelain mask. He has somehow perfected the costume—maybe better than we saw in person with Sloane. The one thing he didn’t match was his hair, which I am extremely thankful that he didn’t slick back. It’s messy, like he’s been pulling at it nonstop, and I cannot wait for the chance to smooth it down with my hands.
“You?” I sniff and realize there is a rogue tear sliding down my cheek.
There are people here…somewhere. I should turn to see who. But then again, does it matter right now? When Fletcher is in front of me, mask on his face, thumb swiping away my tear, my heart in his pocket with no chance of me getting it back.
“Me.” His smile stretches. “You always wanted a surprise party.”
“How’d you know that?”
“You told me.”
Had I? When? “But…you were listening?”
“I’m always listening to you.”
Welp. So much for diminished crushes and hopes of keeping my heart intact. There are no chances left now, nothing but me and my poor unprotected feelings that I never had a chance at securing from this man.
I love him.
I think it’s been there for a long time, maybe even before I knew I had a crush on him. Maybe since he first annotated a book for me, or since we went to the park that day, or maybe with every word of the day he sends me. Maybe it’s the way he so sweetly brushes my hair out of my face when it gets in my way. Idon’t know when it started, and I certainly don’t know where it ends, but I do know that it’s all I have in me right now. Looking at this man is just love.
“Fletcher,” is all I whisper, but my hands are on his suit—his not funeral suit—and I think I might lean in, because he dips his mouth to my ear just for me and whispers, “Maybe see everyone else first, and we can do this after?”
I don’t know what this all entails, but I look behind him to see everyone else and my chest lurches.
Edith and her ex-husband dressed as Frog and Toad from…Frog and Toad. Noah is a police officer—apparently, he really likes a uniform. Margot is a sexy Indiana Jones. Then Lennon and Stephan as little red riding hood and a wolf. Even Cliff is here, dressed as…a pigeon? I think? Miss Gonzales from the third floor is here, wearing a ghost face mask, but she keeps slipping it off because she can’t breathe with it on. Two of the moms from Nook and Cranny are here as Tinkerbell and Wendy.
I didn’t even think that they knew my name as anything other than story time lady, much less would come to a party for me.
“You—” I glance around at this small, wonderful party that this precious soul of a man planned just for me. And all the people that willingly came to it. “You guys are all here?”
“Don’t be so shocked,” Lennon rasps to my right. “Of course we’re here.”
The next thirty minutes I am a rabbit, bouncing from person to person with snacks and drinks and asking who needs what. When Lennon slips down the hall and I rush over to ask her if she needs help, she insists she just needs to pee and forces me to go see Fletcher so I can stop trying to ‘play hostess,’ something I did not even realize I was doing.
I slip over to where Fletcher, Stephan, and Noah are flipping through his vinyl records, fighting over who plays what next.
“Hi.” I tug at his shirt’s cuff and look up at Fletcher.
“Hi.” He grins down at me.
“You know that book we’ve been talking about?”
“With the struggling artist?” His brow quirks.
“That’s the one. Do you remember that one scene where they danced at a Halloween slash surprise birthday party?”
“Remember that time he locked her in a coat closet until she got her senses back?” he deadpans.
“Remember that time when he said he would, but instead decided dancing was far better than causing me—I mean, her—trauma.”
