Page 75 of Big Girl Panties

My gaze lifted to the entrance, and I forced a smile when her friend Davina pushed through the door of her building.

"Hey." My pace slowed before stopping in front of her. "What…"

She threw up her hand, stopping me. "She knows."

My brows pulled together. "She knows what?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "About the bet."

My face twisted with confusion. "What be…" The words died in my throat as reality crashed down on me like a building collapsing.

Fuck.

The ground shifted beneath my feet. The bet. The fucking bet. The stupid, ridiculous, completely-forgot-it-even-existed bet that had started this whole thing. My face went numb, then hot, then cold. I felt like I was going to throw up.

The bet was so completely irrelevant to how I felt about her. That may have been what pushed me to get up and talk to her, but it wasn't what kept me coming back. There was an instant attraction, and the chemistry. God, the chemistry. It was all real, but I wasn't sure she'd believe it.

"And she doesn't want to talk to you."

My heart didn't just drop, it shattered. Pieces of it scattered through my chest, each shard cutting deeper than the last. "Davina, listen, I can explain…"

"It's not me you need to convince, Romeo."

"Maybe not, but you're her best friend and I don't want you thinking I'm some kind of... of," I gestured wildly, my hands shaking, "bet-making monster who goes around breaking hearts for sport!"

Davina sighed, and for a moment, the hardness in her eyes softened. "Look, I have no idea why you approached her that night. Maybe it was a bet, maybe it was a dare, maybe you lost a game of rock-paper-scissors. But what I do know is that the way you look at her? Like she hung the moon and personally arranged all the stars? That can't be faked."

My chest did a weird, fluttery thing; hope and despair competing for dominance. "Really?"

"Really. I've never seen her happier than she's been with you. For me, it doesn't matter how it started because I can see it's so much deeper now. Maybe it was fate. Maybe the universe has a twisted sense of humor." She shrugged. "But here's the thing, if this had happened at any other point in Brooke's life, she might be able to see that. Right now, though? She's convinced she doesn't deserve someone like you."

I let out a sound that was part laugh, part sob. "Someone like me? I once got my head stuck in a fence trying to retrieve a frisbee. I'm not exactly prince material here." I ran my hand over my face. "If I were half the man she thought I was, I would have just told her the truth from the beginning."

Davina tilted her head, studying me with uncomfortable intensity. "Would you, though? She met you the night of her divorce. Days after her ex reminded her that she was 'nothing.'" The way she said it made my hands clench into fists, made me want to find that jerk and show him what nothing felt like. "So you walking up and saying, Hey, my buddies bet me I couldn't take you home tonight. Yeah, that wouldn't have gone over well either."

"So what do I do?" I threw my hands up, my voice breaking. "I don't want to lose her, Davina. I can't lose her."

"Why?" She crossed her arms. "Why don't you want to lose her?"

I stood there, probably looking like a man watching his whole world crumble, and then it hit me. The reason. The real, honest-to-God reason that had been living in my chest for months.

"Because she's my person." The words came out soft. "I'm in love with her. I love being around her, and when she's not with me, I miss her. Like, miss her so much it physically hurts. I miss the way she laughs at my terrible jokes and how she snorts when she thinks something is really funny. I miss how she always steals the last bite of my food but pretends she doesn't want any when I offer to share. I miss how she twists and turns all night long until she's completely cocooned in the blankets and I'm left freezing."

My voice was getting stronger now, more certain. "I miss how she fits perfectly against my chest when we're watching movies. I miss how she hums 90s hits when she's cooking and doesn't even realize she's doing it. I miss how she argues with the TV during her favorite shows."

Davina's expression softened. "Then you need to convince her that regardless of how it started, what you have is real. And that starts with complete honesty."

"I've been honest with her about everything else."

"Then you need to tell her that." She patted my shoulder. "Good luck, Matt. You're going to need it."

I was going to need more than luck. I was going to need a miracle, a really good speech, and maybe some kind of divine intervention.

I slipped into the apartment complex behind someone leaving and rode the elevator up to her floor. My palms were sweating. My heart was beating to some kind of jazz rhythm against my rib cage. I'd never been so terrified in my life.

Standing in front of her door, I took a deep breath and knocked once.

Nothing.