Page 82 of Irresistibly Us
Testing my luck, I take a step forward, pushing a rogue curl behind her ear before dropping my hand to flick her bracelets and link my finger with hers. “You are so beautiful, Sophie. Themost beautiful woman in the world. And when I saw you, it was like everything I’ve ever wanted was standing right in front of me.” Sophie inhales sharply, her finger tightening on mine.
“You’ve been my best friend for my entire life. Nothing will ever change that. But I also think we could be more. So, so much more. Everything,” I practically whisper. “I think we could be everything. I realized that morning I’ve been falling for you for years, without realizing it. Over a million grilled cheeses and rom-com movie nights and thousands of gas station fountain sodas. Hundreds of sleepovers and family dinners and years and years of birthday nights and you wearing my jersey to cheer for me at all my games and my T-shirts when you sleep. Pregame texts and post-game shenanigans and every time I watched you on stage and the times you help me when my brain goes rogue.”
Sophie’s eyes sharpen, and I realize this is the first time I’ve admitted to her out loud that I struggle sometimes. But the look on her face tells me I was right to believe she already knew. She’s always known. Because she knows me. Lifting a hand, I lay it on her cheek, my stomach exploding with butterflies when she leans into my touch. “Through it all, I’ve been falling for you. In a million different ways on a thousand different days. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, but I’m here now, and I’m never leaving. It’s always been you for me, Soph. It will always be you for me.”
“How did you figure out it was me?” she asks simply.
I smile. “When I was in your room, you mentioned having an interview that morning and told me some fact about how fast people can form impressions. Five minutes before that…”
“I told RenegadeRush about the interview,” Sophie interrupts. A shadow crosses her face at the wordinterview,and I remember she never did tell me what happened that day. That’s definitely going to change tonight. After. “I told you,” she says with a half laugh, the shadow disappearing.
I sigh, relieved to have everything out in the open. “Yeah. That was too wild to be a coincidence. And then when I thoughtback through our conversations, I wondered how it was possible I didn’t figure it out sooner.”
Sophie takes a shaky breath, lifting her free hand to take my own away from her face as her fingers find the spaces between mine. We’re holding hands and it feels like the first time. It feels…right. Perfect. Like I never want to let go. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Two weeks ago, you found out I was the girl you had been talking to on a dating app for a month. Then you realized, pretty damn quickly, that you had feelings for me that were…more than friendly.”
“I’ll say,” I mutter.
She laughs, and the sound lifts my soul. “And instead of being like,Hey, Soph, turns out we’ve been accidentally talking to each other on a dating app for weeks and I kind of, sort of realized I have some very-not-friendly feelings for you, you opted to say nothing, instead concocting some half-baked plan to make me fall for you, after which time you would tell me the truth and then we would live happily ever after. Did I get that right?”
“It was a fully-baked plan,” I mutter. “Sort of,” I say quickly when she levels that glare at me again. “Anyway, yeah, that’s the gist.”
She nods. “Okay, so the little touches everywhere. The way you suddenly decided you needed to sit basically on top of me for every movie night and walk me to my door afterwards even though I live in your damn house. The Broadway rave. Those were all…” She trails off.
“Seduction,” I supply helpfully. “I like you a lot, Sal. Like, a lot a lot. I had to make you like me a lot a lot too.”
Silence falls between us and Sophie stares at me, unspeaking. The tension between us grows as we both take a small step closer until our chests are almost touching. I wonder whether she’s going to make the final move or if I am, and I realize I don’t care who does it, as long as my lips are on hers in the next ten seconds.
Except instead of kissing me, Sophie slaps a hand to mychest, shoving me back an entire step. “You absolute idiot!” she exclaims, her brown eyes flashing. “I swear to fucking god, what is wrong you? With men? Why are you all so ridiculously, painfully stupid?”
I open my mouth to respond, but she plows on ahead. “Make mefall for you?” She scoffs, shaking her head as if that’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard, and I’m about to tell her that actually, it’s the best thing ever, before she rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “As if I haven’t been head over fucking heels, completely, hopelessly in love with you for three fucking years,” she mutters.
Wait, what?
My heart beats so fast, I’m mildly afraid it’s going to break my ribs. “You’re in love with me?”
Sophie lets out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scream. “At this moment I have no idea why, but yes. I have, in fact, been pining away for you like some wife waiting for her husband to return from battle. You drive me fucking crazy half the time but I also, unfortunately, can’t live without you. So…” She shrugs. “There it is.”
I stare at her, my insides going absolutely haywire because Sophie Sullivan is in love with me, and I’m in love with her right back, and remember that time I said winning the Super Bowl was the greatest moment of my life? I was a lying liar who lies because this, right here, blows that moment right out of the water.
I want to say words. So, so many words about how we’ll be amazing together and I’ll be so good to her and take care of her and love her more than anyone has ever loved anyone before. But first I need to know.
I cup Sophie’s face in both my hands, leaning in and pressing a kiss to her forehead. I breathe her in, memorizing this moment, before leaning back to look at her, asking the question pinging around in my brain.
“Since when?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SOPHIE
Three Years Ago
“Thank fucking god,” I mutter as I swing my car into a parking spot at the curb in front of Tyler’s parents’ house. It’s been the longest damn day of my entire life, and I hate everyone and everything. I should probably want to go home and eat my weight in jelly beans and drink a million Dr Peppers and talk to no one. Or gather my girls and drink my weight in margs. But when I got in my car after work, it just kind of drove its way over here. Apparently, I need a best friend night so desperately my subconscious arranged one for me before I even had the chance to realize.
That’s been happening a lot lately.
Tyler and I have always spent a lot of time together, especially in the last year since we both ended up back in Pittsburgh living our best post-college lives—him as the rookie starting quarterback for the Renegades and me as the newly-minted executive director of my dad’s foundation. But lately, it’s like I don’t have any tolerance for time we don’t spend together. It’s aweird flex I don’t entirely understand, especially considering my entire family lives here, and so do my five best girlfriends, so it’s not like I’m lacking in people to hang out with. But I don’t want any of them right now.
I want Tyler, and I’m not in the habit of denying myself things I want. Especially when those things come with a guaranteed movie night and the best grilled cheese of my life, which Tyler will make for me and serve me with an icy Dr Pepper.
