Page 43 of Road Trip to Forever
Her fingers trace over the sentences, the paragraphs she’s read aloud and the words I know she adores.
“Yes.” The affirmation wobbles at the edges, and I rub my hands together. If I don’t, I’m going to reach over and pull her to me. Whisper those confessions in her ear and ask what else she wants to hear. “It’s for you. It’s all for you.”
“There must be a hundred books here.”
“A hundred and six.” The tip of my ears turn pink with how quickly I answer. “I know it’s weird, but—”
“It’s not weird.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
I nod, burning a hole into the floor with how intensely I’m staring at the gray rug under my dress. Gray, like my life is without her. What a fitting metaphor.
“This might be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Lola says.
I sit on the bed and the mattress squeaks under my weight. The iron bed frame creaks and groans, and I shrug. “It’s just some highlighting.”
Lola glares at me. She sets the book down and stomps across the room, coming to a stop between my thighs. Her hips fill the space nicely, and for a minute, I pretend that she belongs there.
“Let me rephrase that.” She rests her palm on my cheek, smooth and soft on my skin. “A man willingly listens to me read the books I love. He buys his own copies, remembers the things I liked, doodles around big, impactful words, then keeps the books safe in case I ever want to go back and reread them. Don’t you dare try to minimize this, Patrick Walker. It’s wonderful and perfect, just likeyouare wonderful and perfect. I’m not sure how I can ever say thank you.”
A stick of dynamite explodes behind my lungs, turning into little embers as it sprinkles through my chest like pieces of confetti.
She thinks I’mperfect.
My ego grins and gloats, a victorious inner display of glee. I suppress the desire to hoot and holler, choosing to give her a smile instead.
“You don’t have to thank me. I do it because I want to. Because seeing you happy makes me happy, Lo.”
Her fingernails, the ones painted forest green with flecks of glitter to match the bridesmaid dress she’ll be wearing tonight, graze my jaw. It’s teasing, taunting, and I inhale, staggered and sharp.
These admissions aren’t smart.
They’re wildly idiotic, but I’m past being smart with her.
I’m moronic. So far gone for her I’m out of my goddamn mind.
God, it would be so easy to slide my hands up the curves of her body. Settle my palms over the swell of her hips and tug her close until she was in my lap.
It would be easy to flip her onto her back, her hair scattered everywhere like liquid sunshine.
It would be easy to press my lips to her neck, to her cheek, to the top of her chest, right where her shirt dips to show off her flawless skin.
It would be easy to hand over my heart to her.
Who am I kidding?
I already have.
Years ago, on a hot summer day, when she stuck out her hand and introduced herself, Band-Aid on her arm and dirt on her nose. It was cemented then, written in the stars and stitched across galaxies and moons and suns, eons and eons of time all concluding the same observation: it’s only ever going to be her for me.
No one else ever stood a chance.
“Patrick,” she says. It’s barely above a whisper, barely audible over the pounding of my heart. The rush of lust in my vision and the love in my soul. She traces the line of my cheek then drags her thumb across my mouth, my lips parting obediently.
“Yeah?”
Isthisthe moment? Where she leans forward and I finally meet her halfway?
