Page 38 of Crushes to WHAT

Almond

A bouquet of flowers greets me, stunning pinks and yellows and greens bursting from a craft paper sleeve held delicately in Emerson’s arm. He carries the bouquet like a baby, cradling it with one arm while his other hand rests atop the crinkling paper, a king-size Reese’s pack peeking out between his fingers.

My breath catches, and I forget all about the Big Scary Conversation I need to have with him tonight. “Oh my gosh,” I whisper. “You got me flowers and candy.” But they’re not roses, and it’s not chocolate. It’s dahlias and cosmos and marigolds, my favorites. It’s Reese’s cups, my favorite. It’s for me, personally. Almond Blackwood. A gift designed especially for me, despite how generic it could seem, and he got it. Him. Emerson Wright.

Emerson Wright in his faded T-shirt and his khaki pants and his manbun, special for me, holding a special for me gift.

I’m going to cry.

“Freak,” I murmur as tears gather at the edge of my eyelashes. “Freak, this is really sweet.”

Emerson’s lips twitch. “I haven’t even given them to you yet.”

“Don’t,” I plead. “If you give them to me, I’ll actually cry, and then I’ll have to redo my makeup.” Maybe if I had gotten to the touch-up I planned to do while I was on the phone with Poem, the cosmetics could have withstood the abuse. This morning’s application isn’t fortified enough for such an assault, however.

Emerson’s face softens. “Let me in, then,” he murmurs, stepping in, forcing me to move back or be run over. “I’ll get them in a vase, then we can go.”

“Okay,” I sniff. “Let me grab one.”

“No need,” he says, sauntering down my hallway. “I found them when I was exploring your kitchen last week. Wait there. I’ll be right back.”

I pause, mostly because of his sheer confidence in ordering me to stay while he walks through my house as if it’s his own. I guess he has been here a lot recently.

I won’t deny that it feels as good as it is jarring.

By the time he gets back with my favorite pink milk-glass vase full of the stunning flowers, I’m deep breathing to control my silly eyes. He sets the flowers on my coffee table beside my unfinished diamond painting and holds up the Reese’s pack. “You want these now, or do you want to save them for your post-date freak out?”

“I can’t eat during a post-date freak out,” I answer. “It’s unsafe to eat when you’re hyperventilating. I could choke, and I live alone, so there’d be no one around to give me the Heimlich maneuver, so I’d die. Then you’d find my rigor mortis-ed corpse Monday night when you showed up to work on my studio, and you’d be so traumatized by the discovery that you’d probably go into a psychosis and have to be admitted to the mental hospital, but the closest one of those is an hour away, so your family wouldn’t ever visit you, and then you’d be alone and crazy and traumatized and it would be all my fault for trying to enjoy a little treat at a time when I know better.”

Emerson shrugs. “Reese’s in the car, then.” He approaches, snags my fairy-wing purse off the hook on the wall beside the door, tucks the Reese’s inside, then passes it to me.

I take the bag on autopilot. “Thanks,” I mumble as my cheeks warm.

He smiles down at me. “Hey, baby. You ready?”

There’s really only one answer, isn’t there?

“Not even a little bit, but we can go anyway.”

Emerson laughs, and a stone falls in my gut. He’s just so perfect.

And he’s about to perfectly break my heart.

Chapter Twenty

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He’s done his research!

Almond

He took me to a bookstore. A bookstore. A! Bookstore!

“Is there… something you want? From me?” I ask, eyes wide. “Cause you can just ask. You don’t have to butter me up.”

“I want a lot of things from you,” he answers readily. Casually. As if that isn’t the most terrifying thing he could have said. “But I didn’t bring you here to try and get any of them. I brought you here because I knew you’d love it, and I wanted to see your eyes light up when you realize that they added a whole new shelf to their dark romance section.”

My eyes do light up at that, maniacally, and I forget completely that he wants things from me, or that I’m supposed to be asking him what those things are, per Poem’s instructions. There are new books afoot. I’ll worry about my real life later.