Page 99 of Signed, Sealed, and Smitten
“I’m not slippy enough.” After some wiggling and a grunt, he starts inching himself down the rail like a caterpillar.
“Stop,” I beg through my laughter. “Please, I can’t breathe.”
“You’re going to regret this,” he says over the second-floor railing.
By the time he dismounts from the final banister, I’m a puddle on the floor. He stares down at me, smiling.
That stops the giggles. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“Your turn,” he says sweetly. “And after all of that, I know you aren’t going to be a coward and choose truth.”
“I’m not?”
He holds his hand out to help me up, and when I’m on my feet, he leans down and says, “You’re not.” Then he drops a kiss on my forehead and walks past me to the library.
“All right,” I say, following him in. “Dare.”
He crosses his arms and glances around the library, thinking. Then he smiles again. “Phoebe Jane Hopper, I dare you to reenact your ladder performance from the time you broke into my grandad’s house.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine.”
“I want the song and gestures and everything.”
“I can’t remember the song. That was months ago!”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Just sing about how Hayes is a loser, and that’s close enough.”
“Here we go, the full Belle.” I climb up a couple of rungs, hook my arm and leg for stability, and start singing. “This is a song about a guy I can’t remember, but it’s about how he’s an a—” But the lyric ends in a yelp when my push sends me gliding farther than I expect. I grab the ladder and hug it, my eyes squeezed tight, when it comes to a sudden but gentle stop.
When I look down, Jay is standing on the other side of it in the space created by the ladder’s incline, smiling up at me.
“That’s enough,” he says. “Dare complete. My turn. I pick truth.”
“Okay, uh …”
“I’ve got one,” he says. “I love you, Phoebe, and that’s the truest thing I know.”
My breath catches, and my heart speeds up. I move down a step until our faces are even between the rungs. I search his eyes, and there’s only gentleness, no teasing. “You do?”
He nods. “Big-time.”
“Big-time?”
He nods again. “Don’t worry, I won’t dare you to say it back. I can wait for you to catch up. I just wanted to say it.”
“You don’t have to.”
He shrugs. “I know. But this seems like the right time to tell you since this is how it all started.”
I reach through the ladder to curl my fingers into the flannel of his shirt. “I mean you don’t have to wait for me to catch up.”
“You …”
“I love you,” I confirm. “Big-time.”
His eyes are warm and steady as he gives me one more dare. “Seal it with a kiss?”
And so I do.
