Page 150 of Really Truly Yours

“Sydnee?”

I free my hand, only to knot it with its mate. “I’m a private person, Gray.”

“I know.”

I stare. “Do you? My stomach? My writing? Did I or did I not mention that I don’t tell people about that?”

Horror crests across his unfairly handsome face—and I freshly recognize a universal truth. Pretty people get passes for things mere mortals do not. My own righteous indignation falters as I look at him.

“I’m sorry, Sydnee. I wasn’t thinking.”

No joke. “Do I embarrass you?”

“What kind of question is that?”

He looks and sounds so innocent. “When I was talking about my job, you sure threw my writing into the mix awfully fast.” I angle against the door. “I know I’m not a professor or a doctor, but there is nothing wrong with what I do for a living.”

Talk about fast. The car swerves to the shoulder and into the parking lot of a vacant restaurant. He jams the shifter into park. “No, Sydnee. You could never embarrass me.”

“Never?” I lift an eyebrow. He can’t be that naïve. He knows where I come from.

Indeed, his forehead furrows and his gaze fixates on the gearshift. He’s rarely silent so long.

I begin to squirm, and my heart stumbles around in my chest.

“The truth is…” He peers up, his shadowed jaw working.

Prepared or not, I don’t know if I can bear hearing from his own mouth that I make him uncomfortable around his perfect family.

“Sydnee, you were uncomfortable.”

I gasp. “That’s not true!”

But I turn to the window. A squawking seagull swoops past the car. I watch until the quiet Gray wields undoes me. “Alright, fine. Your entire family is intimidating, you know that, right?” I flap my hand up and down, from his perfectly sculpted torso to the top of his handsome-faced head. “And then there’s…this.”

“This?”

“Yeah. You.”

A cocky grin sprouts around his mouth.

Perfect mouth on a perfect face on a perfect—

Never. Mind.

“What about me, Syd?” Humor garbles the question.

“Don’t play dumb.” My face heats. “You and your pro-athlete self. Give me a break.” I brace my arms across my chest.

The space between his brows puckers. “Now I’m confused. I’m just me, Sydnee.”

“No, you’re a hotshot baseball player, and I’m…I’m…”

His fingers land on the wave of hair at my shoulder. He picks it up and brings it to his lips. “You’re perfect, Sydnee Lou.”

Heart, be still...

I bat at his hand. “Don’t say ridiculous stuff, Gray.”

---