Page 43 of My Hottest Obsession

I knock on the door and hold my breath.

Please, please, please answer.

I hear movement on the other side of the door, which is an improvement. It was silent as a tomb when I knocked yesterday.

The door knob turns, and my heart lodges itself into my throat as I lock eyes with Goldie.

“Hi,” she says, and I blink.

I’d been staring at her like an idiot, and I clear my throat.

“Hey, hi.”

She shifts on her feet, and I shake my head.

“You opened the door.”

“Yeah, well, I figured that if you’re tracking down my friends and showing up here every day, you’re not going to give up.”

“I’m not,” I promise her.

“Well, come in then.”

She moves out of the way, and I walk past her inside.

“Lottie told you that I called then?” I ask as she closes the door behind me.

“Yep.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” she says, sitting slowly on the edge of her chair across from me.

“I tried to come by yesterday, but you didn’t answer. I was worried that you were sick and alone.”

“I’m fine,” she promises me, and I nod.

“Why did you quit? Why did you end things between us? I thought that everything was good. I thought we were finally on the same page,” I ramble on.

She looks away from me, and I lean forward. I want to reach out to her, to hold her hand or pull her into my arms, but I don’t think that would go over well right now.

“It was just getting to be too much. I didn’t even know what this was between us,” she says.

She pushes to her feet and starts to pace. Her fingers twist together and then flex apart. She’s obviously agitated, and I stand too.

“You don’t know what we are?” I ask in disbelief.

“No! We never talked about it. We’ve never once discussed it,” she says, throwing her arms up in the air.

“I thought that it was obvious,” I tell her, and she stops to look at me.

“It’s not. It’s… it’s hard for me to trust people, especially men. I watched my mom fall head over heels for one man after another my whole childhood. She was always left alone and heartbroken. I vowed when I was a kid that I would never end up like her.”

“I’m not going to leave you. Ever,” I promise her and I can see that she wants to believe me.

She’s nervous, afraid to fully trust me, and I decide to lay all of my cards on the table.

“Goldie, I love you.”

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