Page 58 of Mafia Wedding

"If you really want the truth..."

Finally.

I had a feeling there was a catch to all of this, but I was just too blind or stupid to notice it.

"When you told me you had something to say, I thought you were about to confess to another murder."

Oh.

"And once that thought occurred to me, I started planning how to make it go away."

OH.

Normal people will probably think there's something fundamentally wrong about helping your blind date get away with murder, but I personally think it's one of the sweetest and most thoughtful gestures anyone has ever made for me.

Don't keep pushing people away, Kay.

While my paranoid self is adamant this man has to be hiding a fatal flaw or two, my sister has always known best, and since I'm still inclined to take her advice even when she's long dead—-

"May I call you Rake?" His name is the last barrier in my mind, and I won't be able to move forward if I keep thinking about him as 'Boy', this 'guy', or just plain 'he'.

"You don't seem the type to care about names."

"I don't, usually. But sometimes, with the way my mind is wired differently, it gets stupidly fixated on stuff—-"

"And my name is one of them?"

"I'm just having a really hard time seeing you as the 'drake' type."

"Because of the rapper?" he asks dubiously.

I blink at his words. "I'm not sure what drakes have to do with rappers, but I'm just finding it difficult to picture you as a male duck that quacks and waddles."

"Should I be flattered?" he asks in amusement. "I think that's a compliment of sorts."

"No," I say honestly. "It's not."

But this only has him chuckling, and I'm surprised at how the sound makes my heart skip a beat.

"And what about Rake? Why do you want to call me that?"

"Because it almost sounds like Drake, and...because you look like the type to play around?"

"Ouch."

"But it's not just that—-"

He gestures me to stop, and I shut up.

"But wait, there's more," he says teasingly. "That's what you should've said."

Well, if he says so...

"But wait," I repeat obediently, "there's more."

I'm amazed at how this has him chuckling again, and even more amazed at how much I love the sound of it. Is this what it feels like to have a crush?

"What's the other reason?" he asks.

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