Page 80 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
For a second I think he’s going to pull away—call it a mistake—but then his hands slide down to grip my arms, and his eyes get a little urgent. “I loved that you called me out on my shit. Maybe that makes me a masochist, but being around a girl that didn’t seem to care one way or another whether I liked her . . . it’s refreshing. You’re refreshing.”
I shake my head a little, trying to follow him. “So all this time . . .”
His eyes are locked on mine. “Our first day back from Christmas break. Do you remember what you asked me?”
I bite my lip, thinking back. “Um, something about waxing your chest?”
He smiles then, just a flash, before he goes serious again. “So you remember our conversations in detail, too? Good. But no, not that question. The one that came after that. The important one.”
I go still, and he takes another step toward me. “Ask me again, Annie.”
I’m frozen, and not just because it’s thirty degrees outside. “I asked you if Leah dumped you,” I say softly.
“That’s the one,” he says gruffly. “And the answer is no. I broke up with her, Gilmore. I told you it was typical long-distance stuff, and it was. I suffered that all-too-common affliction of falling for someone else. That damn shoulder roll you notice? It’s been my way of trying to stop feeling that way, but I can’t.”
I suck in a sharp breath. So this is what dying of happiness feels like.
His hand moves to cup one of my cheeks and my eyes close. “You wanted to know why I asked Zach about you,” he says quietly. “Ask me that again too.”
I open my eyes, letting them do the asking, and he lifts his other hand to my face in answer.
“Last one,” he says softly. “You asked what happened with me and Katelyn. Care to take a guess?”
My hands curl into his shirt in silent response.
He moves even closer, and I let him press me into the brick wall behind me as I search his eyes. “Once Zach told me that you two weren’t a thing . . . I couldn’t stand the thought of bringing another girl knowing that you were available, Annie.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say, my fingers curling around his tie to keep him close.
His fingers roam my face. “I was going to. That first week back. But I wanted to take it slow. I didn’t think you’d go out with a guy who’d just broken up with his girlfriend, so I thought I’d try to be friends first.”
“The party,” I say.
“The party,” he says with a rueful smile. “I thought I had a honest-to-God chance when you told me that first day back that you didn’t have a boyfriend. But then you showed up that night with Zach.”
I press my lips together and look away, but he puts his thumbs beneath my chin so I’m forced to meet his eyes. “What happened with you and Zach, Annie?”
“Didn’t work out,” I whisper softly.
“Why?”
“You know why,” I say, giving his shoulder a little punch.
“Tell me anyway,” he says a little desperately, grabbing my hand and holding it still.
“I like you,” I say plainly. “A lot.”
His smile is small at first, just a slow curving of his lips, but then it turns into the full, cocky Garrett-grin. How have I not always loved that grin? Or maybe I have, but I was just too dumb and careful to see it.
This time when he moves in, he does so slowly . . . purposefully, and I’m more than ready for it.
I don’t want to miss a single moment.
Not the way my breath catches, or the way his gaze drops from my eyes to my mouth in that very last second before his lips meet mine.
The kiss is perfect. My fingers curl into the shirt around his shoulders as his mouth opens over mine, his tongue touching mine shyly at first, and then more confidently when I open my mouth wider.
Holy crap.
