Page 57 of Getting Over You

“I wanted you to see the view,” Gigi explains. “I had no idea you were scared of heights. I just—”

“It was an adrenaline rush. I was just… The adrenaline.”

“You didn’t have to prove anything to me,” she says softly. She’s echoing my words from the night she got her tattoo.

“Now you’re just fucking with me,” I groan.Like I kissed her to prove that I’m capable of feeling. Nope. Just wanted to kiss a hot girl, simple as that.

“No, seriously. You don’t need to act like some swoon-worthy—”

“I didn’t kiss you to make you swoon,” I snap at her. My jaw pulses. “I was buzzing from being at the top of a god damn Ferris wheel. I told you it was excitement.”

“And I didn’t get my tattoo,” Gigi says coolly, “to prove to you I’m a spontaneous free-spirit. I hate people like that.”

“Then why are you trying to become something you hate?” I spit.

“Why did you ask me to help you understand romance,” she bites back, “if the prospect of being with someone long-term repulses you? I don’t know about you, Cade, but guys who want a fling don’t kiss girls who want relationships unless they’re an asshole.”

“I’ve been telling you the whole time,” I sigh. “I’m an asshole.”

Gigi sighs, scraping her teeth over her lip. “Forget it.”

“Gigi—”

“Stop, Cade. Forget it. We’re pretending that didn’t happen.”

Maybe, from this point forward, she can pretend that didn’t just happen.

But I certainly can’t.

Chapter twenty

Ihave no fucking clue why I kissed her. I mean, I do. Because I wanted to.

Butwhy?

Now she’s overthinking like crazy, probably has started planning our wedding already and picked our kid’s names. But I can’t leave my first date with her like that. I’m still reeling a few days after the kiss, replaying it over and over like a pent up teenage girl.

And if I’m feeling like this, Gigi is most definitely feeling some type of way, too.

I don’t have much to go on in the date idea department, but I remember Gigi saying the artist took her to a nice restaurant downtown. They had rooftop seating, she said, and made sure to express her disappointment that he didn’t request sitting up there.

“You really should pull out all the stops for a woman if you really like her,” she told me behind a melodic laugh. “I deserve a rooftop, Cade.” She quickly followed up, saying she was kidding. I know Gigi, and I know there was no joke behind those words.

But it got me thinking. Gigi deserves a rooftop. I’ve never come close to anything like this. Why not start with the one girl I’ve met who deserves everything she wants?

I called to make reservations and was so nervous I almost spelled my own last name wrong. I had to take a second shower just to get rid of the nervous sweat.

I brought a suit with me, but that was out of an abundance of caution in the case of a pop-up meeting about the shop. Now I’m forcing myself into it and wondering if the jacket is too much and if the black-on-black-on-black looks more funeral director than a guy deserving of a date.

“That suit,” Gigi says, walking with trepidation to the truck later that evening. “What is that suit?”

She slides into the seat next to me and shuts the door behind her as I say, “You like? Or is it—”

She takes her bottom lip between her teeth, averting her eyes. “It’s… You look good.”

“That’s it?” I ask with a laugh. “Good?”

“What do you want from me?” she accuses with a smile. “If you want me to say you’re the sexiest man who’s ever lived or something, I’m not doing it. I refuse.”

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