Page 61 of This Could be Love

Now it just jumped out of my chest completely. I swallowed so loudly that he had to have heard it.

“But seeing as that, in your eyes, all it was wasnice…”

“No!”

“No, you don’t want to go with me to the beach?”

The sound of his voice gave him away. He knew what I was responding to; he just wanted to hear it out of my own mouth.

“It was more than justnice…” I said, grinding my teeth.

“Good. I think so too. Why did you think otherwise?”

“Niceisn’t the opposite ofgood,” I countered.

He laughed. “Yeah.Niceis worse.”

I sighed. “I thought you wanted to dump me, and I just wanted to beat you to it.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like shit, and…”

“No. Why would you think that? I didn’t say anythinglikethat.”

“Exactly. You didn’t say anything,” I said and could feel my frustration looking for an outlet. “For almost two whole days exactly.”

“We didn’t see each other, and I didn’t have your number. How was I…”

“You could have asked your sister. Instead, you told her, what was it again?We’re getting along much better now.”

A sigh came through the earpiece, but it didn’t sound annoyed, just…sorry.

“I only said that so she wouldn’t get suspicious.”

“Suspicious? What would be so bad about that? I mean, I’m surely not the first person you’ve ever…made out with.”

“Yeah, but I’ve nevermade out withone of herfriends. On top of that, Laurie is super nosy, and I have no interest in sharing my love life with my little sister.”

Hearing the wordslove lifefrom his mouth sent a nervous tingling through my body.

“Nor did I think she’d share that with you straight out of the oven, so to speak.”

“She didn’t. In your driveway I’d told her that I’d give her a call and explain everything, but this little flu got in the way. And whenI wanted to apologize, she mentioned it.”

“What wouldyouhave told her?”

Hmm. Good question. I hadn’t even thought of how I might explain to her what was going on between the two of us.

He could have savored my continued silence as victory. Instead, in a soft voice he asked, “So, what do you think? You want to come with me to that beach?”

Although I’d long since made up my mind, I decided to drag it out a bit.

“Are you sure we’ll see some sea turtles?”

“Absolutely.”

Trying to slow down my wildly jumping heart, I suddenly realized that I’d overlooked something.