Page 74 of What Are The Odds?
Levi’s eyes pinned me in place. His expression flashed with frustration. I was scared one of us was about to say something we’d regret. How had we gone from holding hands and kissing to yelling at each other?
“Just because hookups have been meaningless for me in the past doesn’t mean they are anymore.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t give me that speech.”
Levi frowned. “What speech?”
“Theit’s different with youspeech.”
“But itisdifferent with you.”
“Yeah? Then why haven’t we had sex?”
Levi jarred back, as though I’d slapped him.
“Jesus, I don’t know, Grace.” His raised voice was laced with sarcasm. “Maybe because this is more than a casual hook-up, so I wanted to do it right.”
Oh. I hadn’t expected that. He closed the distance between us, stopping directly in front of me. His looming height was familiar. I tilted back my head to look up at him.
“Why do you look so surprised?” He softened his voice. “We said we were exclusive, Hughesy.”
“Exclusively not hooking up with other people,” I agreed. “You never said exclusive meant dating.”
“Well, that’s what I meant.”
I had no idea what to say to that. I wasn’t able to think this quickly.
“You told me you didn’t do girlfriends,” I weakly whispered.
“Yeah. Well. Maybe I do now.”
I groaned, exasperated, before roughly combing my fingers through my hair.
“No. Nomaybes,Levi.Tell me exactly what you mean. What is this? What do you want it to be?”
“I want you to be my girlfriend, Grace.” He threw his arms in the air. “And I want every guy in this college, and country and world to know that you’re mine and they’re not allowed to look at you. Or touch you. Or think about you. Or fucking take you into their room to talk.”
I snickered. “That last one was really specific.”
Levi’s expression told me now wasn’t the time to make jokes. He was probably right. Blame the Aussie in me. It was habit to make light of intense situations. Levi had just confessed he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He needed to give me a minute to let that digest. Wait, no. I didn’t need a minute. I’d just become used to having Levi Holloway in my life. Though I knew it’d be fleeting, I wasn’t ready for it to end yet.
“I wish we weren’t dressed like this while having this conversation,” I said, chuckling.
Levi softened at the sound of my laugher. “I wish we weren’t in Richardson’s bedroom while having this conversation.”
He looked at me cautiously, as though he was worried I was going to run away. I’d be crazy to run away from this. Well, maybe it was just as crazy to stay. But here we were. Neither of us moving. I peered up at him, a smile tugging at the corner of my lips.
“Did we just have our first fight?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He looped his arms around my neck. “And you know what comes after a fight, right?”
His lips brushed mine softly, a preview of what was to come. My body was more than ready to jump to the making up. Every part of me responded to him.
“Did you hear what I said before, Hughesy?” he whispered against my lips.
I screwed up my face, feigning confusion. “Maybe. Can you repeat it? Just in case.”
His smile was disarming.
