Page 100 of The Boyfriend Goal

“You memorized it?” Each word lands with space between them.

“I did,” he says easily, like that’s all there is to it. But it’s a big deal for anyone to memorize three lines. Only, I don’t make too huge a thing of it. I hold on to this nugget for safekeeping in a drawer full of special memories.

“Maybe it was a clue. I think I was hoping I’d see you again,” I say, admitting that now too.

“Then I found your scarf, Cinderella,” he says, recounting more of that morning as he nuzzles my hair again. “I had it all packed up to return to you the morning after our first game. I’d even written you a letter, asking you out.”

My heart is a pinwheel, fluttering in a spring breeze. “You told me you wrote me a letter too.” He said as much the morning we baked. “Do you still have it?”

“I do.”

“I want the letter,” I say, impulsively. “No one has ever asked me out in a letter.”

His smile is smug as he rustles around in the bed, reaching for the nightstand drawer, then he slides it open. He removes a sheet of paper and hands it to me.

My heart is beating loudly in my ears as I open it. Then wildly in my throat as I read.

Hey Josie,

You left this behind, and I’m honestly glad you did. I’m returning it since it’s yours. But also because I’d really like to see you again. Can I show you around San Francisco sometime soon?

Wesley Bryant

It’s so simple and so perfect. I clutch it to my chest, closing my eyes, my cells flooding with sunshine. His lips sweep over my shoulder once more. “Guess it was just a matter of timing,” he murmurs against my skin.

Timing.

That’s always been the challenge for us. I open my eyes and meet his—they’re full of longing and want. “Our timing hasn’t always been right, has it?”

He shakes his head, his tone sad as he says, “No, it hasn’t.”

And it still isn’t. Timing is the reason I’ll have to move home far too soon.

And I don’t want to push anything now. I don’t want to define this. But I do want—I’m just realizing it this very second—more of him. I’m scared to ask for it though. Scared to figure out what this new thing with us is. What if this moment is just pillow talk?

“Hey. What’s going on?” Wes asks.

If I went to improv, I can do this. It’s okay to be afraid. “I like you. A lot,” I say.

He laughs, smiles, and then covers my mouth with a kiss before he says, “It’s sooo mutual.” He reaches for my hand and slides his fingers through mine. “Was that hard to say?”

“I had one serious boyfriend in college and then after college we dated too,” I say, then quickly backpedal. “I’m not suggesting this…or that we’re having a…or anything. But just that a lot of this is…new to me. I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”

He understands what I haven’t said out loud, since he nods, then says, “I haven’t been with anyone in a while. Not since New York. I dated a woman there. Anna,” he says, and I remember what he said about her—that she said he didn’t like anything but hockey. She was the one who wanted him to debate philosophical issues with her.

He drops another kiss to my shoulder. “It’s different with you, Josie.”

The world halts, slowing to this moment, to that admission, to the thing every person longs to hear—that we’re special to someone else.

I touch his cheek, tracing a line along his jaw. “It’s different with you too.”

I don’t entirely know what that means or where we’re going or what we’re doing. But I’m sure tonight isn’t a one-time thing.

I settle into the crook of his arm, then run my fingers over the ink covering his right arm. “I think I’ve figured them out. Your tattoos.”

“Decipher me, then.”

I trace the dog. “You’re into dogs. You want one. So the dog is like a goal.”

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