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“God, I can’t believe I blurted that out.”
I rub at my temples, tamping down the joy his words ignite in me. “Dave, I’m getting some really mixed signals here. First you tell me we may not still be together on Valentine’s Day, and now you’re?—”
He grabs me and crushes our mouths together.
We can’t get too close because we’re both wearing our seatbelts, but his kiss is ferocious, all lips, teeth, and gums. And I love it. I love every minute of it.
But finally I pull back.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“No, don’t be sorry. It’s just my seatbelt was digging into me.”
He smiles. “It’s stupid, Maddie. We hardly know each other.”
I stop myself from rolling my eyes. “You didn’t say you love me, Dave. You just intimated that we might have a honeymoon. You didn’t even say we would be together.”
“I know. I’m not sure how it even came out of my mouth.” He blinks for a few seconds, staring at the open road through our windshield. “But… I can’t deny it, Maddie. I love you. You’re all I’ve thought about since that first night in Glasgow.”
Oh my God. He said it.
It was buried under a lot of word salad, but he said it.
How do I respond?
“I think I was rejecting the whole idea. Thinking that I would be the one Rake-a-teer who would always be a womanizer. Who never wanted to settle down. Hell, I’m only twenty-four.”
I swallow. He just keeps talking. Doesn’t give me a chance to say it back to him.
Do I want to say it back to him?
Maybe I misheard him. What did he just say?
Something about only being twenty-four.
“So is Brock,” I say.
“Don’t I know it. He’s going to have a field day with this.”
He slowly turns his head to face me, his eyebrows raised.
“What?” I ask.
“You didn’t say it back, Maddie. How exactly do you feel about me?”
I think I want to say it back. Actually, the more I think about it, the more sure I am that I want to. Truly I do.
But something stops me.
I don’t want to throw myself at Dave just because all my siblings fell for Steels, and now I have the chance to have one myself. I want to make sure that my feelings are real, and I won’t know that until we’ve been apart for a little while.
“I like you a lot, Dave,” I say, “and yeah, I could easily fall in love with you.”
He stares at the steering wheel. “But you don’t love me.”
I place a hand on his arm. “I didn’t say that. I’ve never been in love before. I feel the same way you do about it. I’m not exactly sure who I am yet or what I want to do with my life. I want to make sure I don’t get caught up in the romanticism of it all. Caught up in the envy I have for my siblings because they all snagged Steels.”
“Yeah, but none of your siblings snagged me.” He waggles his eyebrows.
