Page 80 of Stolen

And then, I looked over at Jacob.

There was an expression on his face that I couldn’t quite read, one that seemed like it was tinged with sadness.

A moment later, his expression had shifted into a smile. “That’s good news, then, right? Everyone gets to go home tomorrow.”

“Everyone gets to go home tomorrow,” I repeated, a familiar sadness now making its way through my body. I wanted to reach for his hand, yearning to hold it as we took in the snowy view of the city.

But instead, I kept my hands to myself, idly wondering if Jacob and I were having the exact same thought.

“Are you almost all packed up?”

Jacob was sitting on the end of my bed, watching as I finished rolling my clothes into my suitcase. I was almost done packing up everything in my room, just having cleared out the bathroom and the closet. Even though I’d only been here for a week, there was a heaviness to my every move, almost like I was moving out of the home I’d grown up in.

Almost like the lodge had somehow become like a second home.

“Yep. Almost done,” I replied, before I faked a smile at him. There wasn’t any part of me that felt like smiling, but I didn’t need Jacob to know that right now. “You’re probably pretty shocked that I could get all my stuff in this suitcase, huh?”

“Why would I be shocked about that?” Jacob smiled, too. “You’re great at PR. I think that means you have to be pretty great at organizational skills, too.”

“You know what?” I said, rising to my feet, my suitcase still on the floor beside me. “I don’t think I can do this, Jacob.”

“Do what, Leo?”

“Pretend like everything’s okay. Pretend like I’m happy to be going home.”

“I thought that was what you wanted, to get everyone on their flights back?—”

“I need to say something!” I cut him off, as I held a finger between us. “Just. Please. I need to say this one thing, and then, we can just let this go or move on or do whatever we need to do.”

Jacob quietly nodded. “Okay. Say what you need to say, Leo?—”

“I love you.”

“What?”

“I love you, Jacob Bronson,” I confessed, my heart racing wildly in my chest with my every word. “Um, I don’t want to be corny and say that I’ve been in love with you ever since the first moment I saw you, but I’ve definitely been in love with you ever since that moment we had in the bar, when it was like you were seeing me. The real me. I don’t… I don’t think anyone’s ever seen me like that before. Ever.”

“Leo—”

“And you don’t have to say anything, Jacob. You don’t have to say it back. I know how crazy this all sounds, I mean, we just fucking met and I’m already saying that I love you? That doesn’t make any sense, except it makes perfect sense to me, which is why I’m just… blathering on about it. Fuck. Jacob. I love you. I’m in love with you. And I’m sorry for unloading all of that on you?—”

“I love you, too.”

“What?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing, the room seeming fuzzy all of a sudden. “What did you just say?”

“I love you, too, Leo,” Jacob repeated, as he stood up to meet me, now standing right in front of me. “And I don’t care about being corny. I think I loved you from the very first moment I saw you, when you had this look on your face like you thought I was some kind of snowy invader coming to loot your wares.”

“Coming to loot my wares.” I couldn’t help but laugh at Jacob’s framing of the first time we met. “I mean, you’re not too far off. Tommy and I were pretty sure you and Bradley were total brutes.”

“You were only half wrong.” Jacob smirked, before he bent to kiss me, our bodies seeming to melt against each other.

Just then, I broke off the kiss, my hand pressed against Jacob’s chest. “Wait.”

“Wait?”

“Isn’t there something you want to ask me?” I playfully crept my fingers up Jacob’s chest. “Something about making us official? Something about making me your boyfriend?”

“You want to be my boyfriend?”

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