Page 162 of Hope & Harmony

I took her face in my hand, stroking her silky smooth cheek with my index finger. “You’ve made me curious, Selena. And the thing about me is when I’m curious, I don’t stop until my mind is sated. Talk to me, tell me everything.”

Her mouth fell open. “I?—”

I kissed her parted lips. “Let’s start small. Tell me the story of how you met Iris Adler.”

“Online.”

“Go on.”

I was on the edge of my seat with no plans of sitting back until I knew everything about this girl.

CHAPTER 6

SELENA

Marco expected me to talk, and the thing was, I wanted to talk to him.

“I d-d-don’t talk a l-lot.” My teeth dug into my bottom lip. “I’m s-sorry.”

Grabbing my hand, he brought it to his lips. “I get that about you. I’m about to say something that’s probably impolite, but I’m the kind of person who lays my cards on the table.”

I nodded. That was exactly my impression of him.

“I heard your stutter the first time you spoke to me, Selena. It’s not a secret you’re hiding from me. If I had to guess, it’s the reason you don’t like to talk openly.”

My head burst into flames, and I wanted to curl into a ball of embarrassment. It was stupid, really. This man had seen every inch of me. He’d been inside me. Why the hell was I still so ashamed of something I couldn’t help?

“O-okay,” I whispered.

“No, listen.” He pressed his lips to my knuckles. “I heard it then, but after a while, I stopped noticing it. When you talk, it’s just you talking, and I want to hear every fucking thing you have to say. I mean that, Selena.”

He proclaimed it with such adamance I had no choice but to believe him. He wanted my words, even if they weren’t perfect, and that was something I couldn’t shy away from. I didn’t want to.

So, I spoke like I didn’t have a stutter. I wove my story around him with perfect threads, drawing him closer to me.

“When I was little, I used to get so frustrated because I had a lot to say, but it never came out right. So one day, my abuela told me to write down everything in my head. She assured me it didn’t have to be perfect or even make sense, but I needed to let it out, or I would burst at the seams.”

Marco nodded along with me, his gaze wholly focused on my lips, my expression, my eyes. His body was attuned to mine as he stroked my cheek and held my hand against his chest.

“I still have my old notebooks stored in boxes.” I smiled faintly. I’d have to dig those out when I had the chance. “I filled them one after another, first with streams of consciousness, then they began to take form. Stories, poems, and lyrics. I sang them in whispers to my abuela, sometimes to my close friends. Everything that I’d locked away for so long began to explode out of me. Words like stardust, showering all over the pages of my notebook. Then, my friends encouraged me to share my writing, so I set up a couple social media accounts. I read the poetry and sang the lyrics.”

“You don’t stutter when you sing,” Marco filled in.

“No. Not when I read either.” I smiled, unsurprised he’d noticed. “Sadly, I don’t live in a musical.”

“You could be a star, Selena. That could be you, center stage.”

I shook my head. “I’ve never wanted that. It’s enough to get the words out.”

“That’s how Iris found you?”

“Yeah. She slid into my DMs.”

He chuckled. “Did you know who she was?”

“I’d heard of her, but I had a hard time believing it was really her. Then she gave me her number, and when she answered with ‘Hey, honey bunny,’ I almost fainted.”

He laughed a little harder. “I bet you did. That’s wild.”

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