Page 77 of Rebel Romeo

Her voice was so innocent that it caused the hairs on the back of my neck to lift.

“Of course, you believe in love at first sight,” I grumbled to myself.

“Of course, you don’t.” Her retort made me smile, and she lifted a finger, poking my dimple.

The lamp on the side table cast a golden hue around the back of her head, making her look even more angelic than she usually did. That, coupled with her sweet, honey-dipped voice and cherubic smile, was almost too damn much. Especially for all the dirty thoughts that were swimming in my head.

“You really don’t believe that two people can see each other and feel a connection so strong, so intense, that they know they belong with that person?” she asked.

“What you just described is chemistry at first sight. I believe in that.”

“But not love?”

I shrugged. “If you had parents like mine, you wouldn’t either.”

The words were out before I even realized what I was saying.

Her playful smile melted, and her spine straightened beside me. “Holden?—”

“Don’t,” I said quickly, doing my best to soften my tone and not snap at her. “Don’t do that thing where you pity me or try to convince me otherwise. Despite my parents being miserable together, I have an incredibly charmed life.”

She launched forward, snatching the remote to pause the movie before turning to face me. Sitting up on her knees like that nearly brought her eye to eye with me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

But she didn’t answer me. Instead, she held up a finger, her expression determined—fully shifted from the playful, sweet girl who’d been flirting with me a moment ago. “I want to make something really clear: I don’t pity you, Holden. I can hold sadness and compassion for you without it being pity. I don’t know why people jump to the conclusion that empathy immediately means I’m somehow looking down on your situation. But also, love doesn’t need you to believe in it in order to exist. It exists with or without your approval. And someday, you’ll fall in love?—”

“I didn’t say I didn’t believe in love. I know love exists, even if I think it’s not worth the hassle. Obviously, it exists.” It just didn’t exist for me.

“So, it’s just the idea of love at first sight you don’t believe in?” Katherine challenged with a lift of her brow.

I mimicked her lifted brow in response. “That’s right.”

“What if we take romantic love out of it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What about the love a parent feels the first time they hold their babies? That’s love at first sight.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s not the same?—”

“Or what about someone who adopts a dog and sees an animal at the shelter and immediately knows that is their dog. Isn’t that love at first sight?”

“I guess. Look, my issue with the whole ‘love at first sight’ thing is that love takes patience. And growth. Love means loving everything about someone—and when you first lay eyes on a person, how could you possibly know everything about them? Furthermore, it’s superficial. If a woman told me she saw me and instantly fell in love, I’d be wary. Because all she’s responding to—all she’s reacting to—is my looks. I don’t want the girl who’s infatuated with me just because I have a symmetrical face!”

Katherine pressed her lips together thoughtfully, sitting back on her heels. “So how are you going to believably play a scene—hell, a whole show—that hinges upon love at first sight?”

My stomach grew cold, and I took a long sip of my Coke. “I don’t fucking know. I mean, do I need to believe it in order to act it? I just need to get to a place where my character believes it, right?”

She sat there with her feet tucked up under her, water glass in hand, tracing little circles in the condensation. Silently, we sized each other up for the longest minute of my life before she finally said, “Love at first sight doesn’t have to be about the person’s looks, you know. It’s not like I fell in love with you the first time I saw you or anything. But when we first met… it was like I knew you were going to matter in my life.”

The grip she had on her glass tightened as my stomach did a somersault inside of me. That’s what it was when I met Kate—an immediate recognition that she was someone who could matter in my life, if only I’d let her.

Why wouldn’t I let her?

She crossed my path and suddenly, the entire direction of my life shifted. Without Kate, would I even be in this show right now? Without the connection she and I had on stage, I don’t know that I would have performed well in those first acting exercises.

My shoulders ached with tension. She stared at my lips with a gentle warmth in her eyes. Her tongue glided across her lower lip in the sexiest invitation to kiss her.

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