Page 72 of First Love, Second Draft

“Did he pour beer on your head?” Noah said.

“Are you insane?” Rachel wheezed out.

Matt was about to be, if they kept firing off questions without ever giving him a chance to answer. He scooted his chair back. “I told him if he ever thought about hurting you again, just be sure to direct it at me because I’d much rather suffer than ever see you get hurt again. Or something like that. I don’t remember. I’ve been in an accident since then, and to be honest, everything’s a little bit fuzzy now. Except for you kissing me in your car. I remember that.”

Rachel’s cheeks flushed. Gracie clapped her hands together. And Noah said, “I knew I saw something.”

Then Gracie and Noah both rose at the same time. “Hey, Grace, didn’t you say earlier we needed to—”

“—do that thing,” Gracie finished. “Yep. That’s what I said. We should definitely go—”

“—do that thing. Yep. That’s what I thought you said.” Noah nodded. “Probably should do it in the other room.”

“Right now.”

“I should probably go too,” Rachel said.

“No,” Noah and Gracie both said at the same time. “You should do this thing,” Gracie said as she stumbled toward the back kitchen door.

“In this room.” Noah slipped an arm around her waist before she tripped over her own feet and fractured something else.

“Right now,” they both added before slamming the back kitchen door shut behind them.

“Subtle, aren’t they?” Rachel smiled.

Matt tried to return it, but even just moving facial muscles hurt his head at the moment. “Rachel, I—”

“Don’t say anything.” She held up a hand. “I can tell you’re miserable, and right now I don’t feel like I can yell at you the way I want to yell at you for seeing Ace until your head feels better.”

“I don’t feel like I can kiss you the way I want to kiss you until my head feels better.”

Her cheeks flushed even darker. He smiled, not caring how much it hurt his head. “Wow, Rach. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so blushy before. At least not back when we were just friends. Maybe now that we’re—”

“Nope. We’re not having that conversation right now. Not when your brain is making up words like blushy. Right now we’re just friends.” She started for the front door.

“I love you.”

“Stop it,” she said, spinning around. “We’ll figure this out later.”

“Hey, pretty sure a medical professional said I might have one of those secret head bleeds where I’ll be wearing a toe tag by midnight. If that’s the case I want you to know for sure and for certain that I love you.”

“Great. Now I know. But not another word about it until you’ve gotten some rest. I can’t have the man I love puking all over my shoes.”

The man I love.A slow sensation of warmth spread inside Matt’s stomach, a welcome exchange for the nausea. He could almost believe his head even hurt a bit less. Almost. “You love me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did say that.”

“Okay, I might’ve said that. But it doesn’t mean I mean what you automatically think I mean.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you need to go to bed and rest. We’ll talk about this later.”

“When?”

“When you’re not about to drop dead.”

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