Page 36 of The Twelve-Hour Rule
“I’m serious,” I say quietly. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. About those few days we spent together. About how easy it was to just…” I take a deep breath. I’m not sure she’s going to do well with the admission, but I might as well try. “Be.”
There’s a moment of vulnerability in her gaze, and it hits me square in the chest.
“Do you do this a lot?” she asks.
“Chase women across boroughs and stalk their workplaces? Not really my style, no,” I say with a grin, and that finally earns me a full laugh.
“God, you’re ridiculous.”
“I’ve been called worse, Sunshine.”
She studies me for a long moment. The sunlight’s fading, the glass buildings around us catching the pink of early evening. I can see the reflection of the streetlights starting to come on in her eyes. There’s apprehension there, just like the night I met her at the beach bar.
“Letting it be has never worked for me,” I say simply. “You said you wanted that big, bold, beautiful love, and I think maybe we found it—you just haven’t let yourself realize it yet.”
Her breath catches. “Ben?—”
“And maybe I’m wrong,” I continue, trying not to sound desperate. “But I’d rather find out than keep trying to erase something that felt magical.”
She exhales slowly, eyes flicking to the street before coming back to me. “You really don’t give up, do you?”
“Not when something feels right.”
We stand there in silence, the city moving around us. Someone passes us while loudly talking to their phone screen and saying something about someone being roommates. There’s a honk in the distance just as the wind picks up and tugs at the loose strands of her hair.
Finally, she breaks into a small, resigned smile. “I have to run something back to the office, but I’ll be free in about two hours. I can meet you here.”
My chest loosens. “I’ll wait.”
“Of course you will,” she mutters, shaking her head.
“I’m very patient,” I call out as she starts walking towards the corner.
She looks back once, hand on her bag handle, and that smile—the one that wrecked me in the Caribbean—is back. “You’re really not.”
She disappears before I can come up with a response.
Two hours later, I’m still there. I ran to my office but couldn’t get any work done, so instead I scrolled on social media and rotted my brain until it was time to leave.
The temperature dropped, and my fingers have gone numb, but I wait. I walk up and down the block twice, buy overpriced coffee from the corner shop, check my reflection in a storefront window like an idiot.
When she rounds the corner again—coat buttoned, lipstick red— the quiet confidence in her stride that makes my knees feel unsteady.
“You waited,” she says, eyes flicking over me.
“I told you I would,” I reply. “And also I don’t have your number yet.”
She chuckles, then nods toward the corner. “There’s a place two blocks away. You like Italian?”
“I like anything with you,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her mouth curves, slow and deliberate. “You better not be this cheesy all night.”
“No promises,” I say, grinning as we start walking.
The city hums around us—car lights streaking gold, voices spilling from open restaurant doors, snow melting in thin streams along the curb. And I feel like I’m moving toward something instead of away.
CHAPTER 19
