Page 84 of Getting Over You

I take a shaky breath in. “Sure,” I say. “But I’m not letting you into my bedroom.” I take my phone out of my pocket, hang up on Mollie as she’s staring at me with her forehead creased in confusion.

“Didn’t plan on seeing it, princess,” Cade says as he walks in.

Cade and I spend the rest of the afternoon together, eating pizza and taking small scoops of ice cream in between. This doesn’t do any good for my heart, because the idea that he is with me and doesn’t want me to take off my clothes is comforting.

What we do is fine enough. But the times he gives me slivers of sweet Cade with a heart—getting me coffee and bringing it to the diner, the Ferris wheel moment that replays like a movie every night before bed, how soft he touches me, like he thinks I’ll snap in two under his hands.He couldn’t possibly not have feelings, right? Guys without feelings don’t act like this. I’ve seen plenty. If Cade Deans is calling himself an emotionless, heartless man, he’s lying.

I show himThe Bachelorthis afternoon, skimming through the boring parts and having to re-explain the rose ceremony multiple times. He endures it all, so much so that when I look over after our fifth episode, he’s fallen asleep. In caring mode, I stand, pulling the blanket that sits on the back of the couch over Cade’s frame. He shifts, but doesn’t wake.

I leave him to sleep.

I don’t want to wake him by being in the kitchen or living room, so I pad my way up the stairs and to the hole that is my room. I take the opportunity to reconnect with Mollie. I’ll just whisper.

“YOU JUST HUNG UP!” she bellows as the call connects.

I shush her. “He’s asleep downstairs.”

“AS IF HE CAN HEAR ME!” she tries again, her vocal chords straining. “WHY IS THE TATTOOED HUNK ASLEEP IN YOUR HOUSE?”

“It’s not my house.” I shrug. “It’s Belinda’s. And can you stop yelling?”

“Gigi.” Mollie softens. “You know what I mean.”

My eyes roll. “Are you done?”

She actually takes time to think. “I guess. But this arrangement is giving me whiplash.”

“You and me both,” I tell her.

“Obviously,” Mollie chides. “The tattooed hunk is asleep on your couch as we speak.”

“I’m too polite to wake him up and kick him out,” I quip. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“For starters,” my sister sing-songs, “you can admit you like him, and that’s why he’s asleep on your couch.”

“Belinda’s couch,” I warn, grinning against the phone.

“It doesn’t matter to me whose couch it is,” she replies, frank. “It matters thatyouare the one allowing him to sleep there undisturbed.”

“What does that mean?” I chide.

“It means,” Mollie replies, breezy, “that youlikehim, Gigi.”

I sigh, my shoulders heavy with the weight of guilt. “Fine,” I mutter sheepishly. “I do. I like him, okay? But—”

My chest goes light with realization, butterflies flapping away in my stomach.

“Ah-ha!” my sister squeals. “And no buts! No ands! And no ifs, I guess! Whatever.”

“Admitting I like Cade changes absolutely nothing,” I say sorrowfully. The thoughts of him looking at me on the Ferris wheel flash in my mind with my words. The smile on his face. The way he kissed me at that exact place, and changed the trajectory of my entire summer. The way it feels to hold his hand in moments when we need each other most, during fears, big and small.

The hand I can’t trust to hold on tight and never let go is the only hand I want to hold.

And that hurts much worse than my tattoo did.

If Cade ever asks the number for the pain he’s causing me, I’ll tell him it’s a solid eight.

And then hope he holds my hand to make it better.

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