Page 37 of The Lucky One

“I’ve already told you to stop getting all your football knowledge from movies, Goldilocks. Not all of us are like Joe Kingman.” He rolls his eyes. “I’m not even a quarterback.”

“So you don’t live in an obnoxious penthouse with a shrine to Elvis? Or drive a super fancy car? What about fancy jewelry? Surely there’s a championship ring in there somewhere you can’t live without.”

“Forget I asked this question,” he grumbles.

“I knew it. Youdohave a shrine to Elvis.”

“You’re so strange sometimes.”

There’s zero punch to his words, and I swear there’s a hint of a smile mixed in with his annoyance.

“Fine. I’ll drop the obsession with Elvis. What would you grab, then?”

There’s a low rumble in his throat that I’m trying to find unattractive. Paired with his deep, velvety voice, I’m losing. I blame the fact that I’m lonely with this unexpected movie marathon and all the things we’ve been doing together.

Forced proximity at its finest.

“I asked you first, Spitfire. What would you grab? Your planner, maybe? Can’t have a disaster without having a color-coded evacuation plan.”

I press my lips into a hard line.Ouch.“Weston?—”

“No, that’s not it.” He shifts, so he’s facing me more squarely. “Your shoe collection. You can’t even handle a little mud. Can you imagine the way they’d look after smoke damage? The horror.”

“Stop.”

“So you can dish it out to me, but I can’t dish it back?”

“I just don’t want to play this game with you.”

He pauses and I squirm under the scrutiny of his gaze.

“Do you even know what you’d grab?” he asks, quietly. “I don’t think you do. You’ve tried so hard to be whatever people want from you, you don’t even focus on you. You probably don’t even know what you want.”

I gasp, the sound sharper than I intend.

“That’s—” My voice falters, the rest of the sentence dying on my tongue.

Not fair. Not right.I want to argue with him, but I can’t.

It is unfair, but only because there’s so much validity to his statement it hurts.

It’sunfairthat he sees so much of me when he hardly even knows me. Andrew and I couldn’t spar like this because we didn’t show this side of each other. Everything had to be perfect.

And my mother has always expected the same.

It doesn’t matter what I’d grab in a fire—if I even knew what that was—because it’snoneof his business.

He at least has the decency to look concerned at what my response might be, like he knows he just threw a lit match into grass that hasn’t seen rain in far too long.

I wrap my fingers tighter around my blanket like it’s my life preserver, and I contemplate yanking it over my head like a petulant child who just wants to disappear.

“Let’s just turn the movie back on,” I finally say.

Weston doesn’t say a word. He just leans back into the couch, his expression unreadable. A heavy sigh escapes me, like I can breathe again now that he’s not trying to stare into my soul.

I can’t focus on Matthew Goode or the tension and banter I usually enjoy from this movie because I’m spinning toward an existential crisis.

What would I grab? There’s nothing that comes to mind.

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