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I pull even further away and eye him questioningly. “Wha—how long?”
“How long what?” Amusement tugs at his lips. He’s playing with me again.
“How long have you felt something for me?”
“Ben’s wedding.”
I freeze. “Ben’s wedding? That was three years ago?”
“I’m painfully aware!”
I smirk. “You’ve been pining for me for three years?”
He gives a sheepish grin. “I wouldn’t say pining, and it might have crossed my mind a time or two before then.” I gape. I don’t know what to say. “There might have been a teensy, tiny bit of jealousy when you brought what’s his name home for Christmas.”
I don’t have words. I don’t even know what to do with all of this new information. All this time. All these years that we could have—I can’t even wrap my head around it.
“There’s more,” he confesses. I’m not sure how much more I can take. “It took everything out of me not to kiss you that night.” He doesn’t have to say which might. I know exactly what he is talking about.
“Why didn’t you?” I barely whisper.
He rubs the back of his neck. “You had just broken up with your boyfriend. I didn’t want to complicate things for you. Especially when I wasn’t sure I even knew how to be a boyfriend. In case you haven’t noticed, relationships haven’t exactly been my forte.”
My head is reeling. So many thoughts. So many emotions.
“I would have let you, you know.”
“I know.” He pulls me back into him as the song finishes. I can hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest. “How long?”
“Huh?” I don’t dare look up at him.
“How long have you had feelings for me?”
I make myself look up. “Umm, wellllll… ” He looks at me expectantly. “It’s been a bit longer than you,” I confess. I feel heat creeping up my neck.
“How long?” I hear the smile in his voice, and I hate him for it. Only I don’t hate him at all. The complete opposite. “Come on, I told you.”
I take a break and steal my resolve. “Okay. Fine.” I look at him making full eye contact. “I have pretty much been in love with you since I was about twelve.”
He smirks. “Since you were twelve?”
My embarrassment hits me, and I bury my face in his chest.
“So the theme songs?”
I nod.
“The jerseys?”
“Yes,” I say, muffled into his shirt.
He puts his arms tighter around me. “Why?”
I try to extricate myself from him, but he holds me firmly in place.
I shrug. “You saw me.”
My eyes start to brim with tears as the full embarrassment starts to hit. “I read Persuasion fourteen times the summer you left for college purely because I knew that’s the book where your mom got your middle name.”
