Page 68 of Dopplebanger

I also want to make a cheesy pun about your two lips, but I’m afraid I’ll undo everything else I’ve said today. Shit, I probably undid it by just saying that, didn’t I? I’d start a new piece of paper, but I’m trying to lay it all out there, so…

I promised myself I’d give everything I had to showing you how much I care, and that I know you better than anyone else.If you don’t want me to contact you after today, well, it’ll kill me, but I won’t keep bugging you. That’s not me giving up, it’s me letting you choose and giving you your freedom.

I do, however, have a few more hours till the clock strikes midnight…

He didn’t sign it, and I wasn’t sure what exactly the clock-striking-midnight statement meant. It was seven o’ clock and if I had to wait till midnight for the conclusion, I might explode.

“Why are you frowning like that? Was the note bad?” Tori asked.

“No. It was just as sweet and funny as the other two notes. It’s just that the other notes told me facts about who he is.” His words were amazing, and they made my heart soar, but I found I missed those details he’d included about himself. I wanted to dive deeper into who Ethan was. I wanted to see if we could make things work.

I did. I couldn’t help it.

Ethan always claimed I’d be fine on my own. And technically I was still breathing, still living, but I no longer felt fine without him my life.

The doorbell rang.

I stared at the wood that separated me from whoever it was, afraid to hope, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

“I’ll get it,” Tori called out, unnecessarily loud. She swung open the door, blocking the way with her body. “Do I know you? You look super familiar, yet slightly different.”

“Funny,” Ethan said, and a swarm of dizzy butterflies swirled through my gut.

“I thought so. I said I’d help, not that I wouldn’t make you work for it.”

“Fair enough. I’ve prepared a big closing argument. Can I come in and finish presenting my case?”

Tori tilted her head back and forth and then shrugged. “You can certainly try.”

As much as I wanted to scream at Tori to let him in already—as well as shout at him to get his fine ass in here—I enjoyed that they seemed to be getting along. That’d be important if this was going to work.

For the first time since our crash, optimism that we might be able to fix things thrummed through me, growing with each passing second, even as I warned it to slow its roll.

“Gwen, your dopplebanger’s here!”

Ethan groaned as he pushed inside. “Please never say that again.”

“Yeah, I’m probably gonna keep saying it. Like, a lot.” Tori gave me a questioning glance, checking that I was okay with her leaving me alone in the apartment with Ethan.

Ethan, who was standing across from me, wearing a faded blue T-shirt and jeans and looking sexy as ever. “Hey,” he said, the low timbre of his voice making a lusty mess of my insides.

Be strong, be strong. No crumbling apart just because he’s here.“Hey.” Yeah, my voice totally squeaked. “Thank you for the stuff and the notes.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I wanted to show you that I know you. And that you know me, while also providing a bit more about me.”

The paper in my hand crinkled as I lifted it. “This last letter doesn’t say anything about you, though.”

He dipped his head, those blue eyes snagging mine and robbing me of oxygen. “What do you want to know?”

Everything.My logical side warned that knowing more would only get me in deeper, but let’s be honest, I was already in deep. Already a complete fool for the guy.

Already ruined for anyone else.

But I did want to know more, to proceed with caution, and so I decided to start with some basics that we’d missed. “What made you want to become a lawyer?”

“Well, I waxed poetic about justice on our trip—all that was one-hundred percent my nerdy love of the law. At first I was leaning toward it because it’d make my dad happy, and sometimes I still worry that I won’t ever live up to him, but I stuck with it for me.”

“Was law school hard? I mean, duh, of course it was hard. How’d you get through it?”

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