Page 52 of Puck Me Twice
He laughs. “Trouble in paradise already, Van?”
She stands and glares at him. “Shut up.” She turns back to me and glares some more. “We need to talk.”
Mute, I nod, and she brushes past me, down the hall.
“No hanky-panky in the storage closet,” Scott calls after her.
She flips him off.
Pulling me into the copy room, she shuts the door behind her and crosses her arms over her chest.
“You can’t do this.”
“Do what?” I’m honestly confused by the hostility. “I wanted to check in on you.”
“You can’t just buy me things and expect—” She lets out a grunt of frustration. “You brought the pastries?”
Nodding, I step toward her, and she flinches back. “I wanted to apologize.”
Her eyebrows go up. “For?”
“I threw too much at you,” I say simply. “A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours, and I understand that you need time to process. So—apology pastries.”
“You probably bought out the bakery.”
Shrugging, I admit, “I wanted to make sure you got your favorites.”
Vanessa bites her thumb. “I liked the chocolate croissant.”
“I’ll bring you one tomorrow.”
“No.” She sighs. “You shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” I cock my head.
“You can’t love-bomb me and magically I’ll—”
“Hold on.” I lift my hand. “What is love-bomb?”
I’m pretty fluent in English, they teach us in school from such a young age, but I haven’t heard that phrase before.
Her eyebrows knit together. “It’s when you go overboard with attention and affection, to the point where you’re trying to influence how someone else feels. Usually not for good reasons.”
“That’s not my intent.” I wait until she meets my gaze. “That was not my intent at all. I wanted to do something nice for you.”
Vanessa pauses. “I just… it’s a lot.”
“I know. And that’s why I wanted to apologize,” I repeat. “It was unfair of me to drop all of that on you, especially in a place where you couldn’t get away.”
Cornering her in my car… not my brightest move.
“I just… we kissed for the first time yesterday,” she says weakly.
Nodding, I agree. “And that was too much? With everyone knowing?”
She shrugs. “It feels like I’m watching someone else live my life instead of me actually getting to experience it. I’m not used to being the center of attention. I don’t think I particularly like it.”
“Where does that leave us?”
