Page 70 of Never Pucking Ending

My shoulders sag with relief that it isn’t only me—that it hasn’t been me. Yesterday should have been a pretty clear indication of that but hormones make people do funny things. Sex doesn’t always have to mean anything. I’d had it casually before without falling for the person I’d shared a bed with.

But that isn’t the case here.

Jesse feels the same way.

“I thought you were going to tease me for having a crush on you all these years,” I admit sheepishly, scratching my cheek.

He rolls his eyes and slides off the stool, rounding the island to pull me into him for a hug. Those arms are warm around me, not squeezing or demanding or wanting to move things in a direction other than comfort.

“I suspected you did,” he tells me, pressing a kiss against the crown of my skull. “But I think part of me had one on you, even if I didn’t know it at the time. I had a staring problem, especially when you wore that yellow sundress with the little white flowers. Kyle used to smack me upside the head and tell me I was drooling whenever you’d walk around school wearing that.”

What? There is no way he’s saying what I think he is. “You had a crush on me?”

He chuckles, pulling back and moving hair behind my ear. “Is that so unbelievable? Like you said. You saw a version of me nobody else did. It was always simple around you because you never made me feel like I had to be anyone other than myself. You liked sports and could hold a conversation. Once, you challenged my dad on who was likely to go to the Frozen Four and I swear I had a boner when you started throwing out the statistics of your predicted teams.”

The teams, as I recall, all advanced.

His father’s picks did not.

I grin. “I gave you a boner, huh?”

I shouldn’t be proud of that, but teenage Belle is high-fiving adult Belle right now. The teen version of me only read about boners and attraction. I never experienced it firsthand very often. And when I did, I was somewhat emotionally removed.

“Don’t act so smug,” he tells me.

“Too late,” I sing-song.

Amusemnet lifts his mouth. “Point is, I’ve liked you for a long time too. You’ve always been real with me when very few people have.”

We look at one another, and warmth spreads across my whole body as his fingers trail down the outline of my jaw and land on my chin. Tingles of awareness spark my heart into overdrive, but he doesn’t kiss me like I think he will. Instead, he delivers one last truth that may as well have killed me, brought me back to life, and killed me again.

“What happened between us yesterday was inevitable,” he whispers, locking eyes with me so I don’t mistake the seriousness in them. “We are inevitable, and I’m going to do my damndest to prove that to you.”

I let out a rush of air feeling those words envelope every inch of me.

He didn’t tell me he loved me.

But he may as well have in that moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Belle

I made a mistake. I’d realized it too late and couldn’t admit it aloud when Jesse drove us to the address where we’re doing the Core Charge photoshoot. Hell, I realized this was a bad idea when I took an everything shower—shaving every inch of myself, exfoliating, and moisturizing—because I didn’t know the extent of the photos they wanted to take. I mean, we wouldn’t be naked. Right?

Right?

Nausea sweeps over me again as Jesse pulls into a reserved spot with his last name on it. There’s one for me too, which is moot considering we carpooled for the occasion. I could barely talk, worried I’d spew out every little insecure thought loitering in my brain.

“Want to talk about it?” Jesse asks, turning the ignition off.

I blink, startled away from the window I’ve been staring out. How the hell did we get here so fast? I barely remember him backing out of the driveway much less punching in the gate code to get out of the small neighborhood.

“Talk about what?” I cringe at the high pitch to my voice, giving me away.

He chuckles. “You’ve clearly got something on your mind because your leg hasn’t stopped bouncing since we left the house.”

I glance down at my leg, which is indeed still bouncing. I force it to stop, frowning. Have I really been doing that the whole drive? It took us forty minutes to get to the warehouse where Isaac and his team were waiting for us.