Page 37 of Unwanted

Not an answer I’m willing to share.

So, would it be a problem?

Absolutely.

It would very much be a problem, because there would undoubtedly be more moments like this.

Moments of us all getting along, moments where he and I are alone. Me accidentally touching him. Him accidentally watching me.

“No. Of course not,” I lie. “I think Lennox would really like that.”

“Just Lennox?”

I meet his challenging gaze. “I don’t know what you want me to say here.”

“The truth.”

“You want the truth now?” I look outside the window. “In front of a dingy pizzeria on the side of the road?”

I feel him squeeze my forearm, but I don’t have the courage to look back at him. “I’ll take the truth any way you’re willing to give it to me.”

“Like I said”—I swallow down my emotions—“I think staying will be great for you and Lennox.”

I hear the resignation in his sigh before he releases his hold on me and exits the car. Slowly, I turn my head and watch him walk into the restaurant.

He’s the same but different.

Enough the same that I know I still have feelings for him, but different enough that I am nothing but intrigued by all the things I could potentially feel for him.

When he arrives with the multiple boxes of pizza and a plastic bag filled with drinks, the car fills with heat and the rich scents of tomato, basil, and garlic.

My stomach growls just as he fastens his seatbelt and he opens the box at the top and holds up a slice of Margherita pizza.

“Like old times?”

One side of my mouth pulls up in a smirk. “I will if you will.”

He takes a huge bite out of the slice and then returns it to the box. He opens the next one and it’s my turn to do the same.

When we were younger, we would always come back home having taken a bite from a slice of pizza in each box before everybody else could get to it.

It started out innocently enough, one of us really hungry one night and we couldn’t wait to make it back home to eat.

But when we noticed how much it irritated Clem, Remy, and Lennox we continued to do it every time we ordered pizza.

It was stupid and juvenile, but it was familiar.

And it was us.

As I scarfed down another slice of pizza, I acknowledged how easy it could be for us, if we just let go of the tension of our past. If we didn’t both feel the need to challenge one another.

If we didn’t both feel the need to drag the truth about how we feel into every conversation, we could just laugh and joke, andbelike this.

When we arrive back at the hospital, the lightness in both of our steps is obvious. And when we place the pizza boxes on the edge of Lennox’s hospital bed and watch everyone groan and moan when they see the missing slices, I feel closer to whole than I have in years.

Lennox surprises us when he chooses to talk and explain to Rhys how and why Frankie and I had eaten some of the pizza before returning to the hospital.

It was still an adjustment to hear him speak louder than everyone else, but it was good to see him smiling. I glance between him and Rhys, and notice I’m not the only one intrigued by their new and quickly forming connection.

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