Page 72 of Don't Puck Your Best Friend’s Girl

"I can handle it myself."

"I know you can." I reach for her anyway, gently turning her face toward me with my fingertips beneath her chin. "But you don't have to."

She allows the contact, though tension radiates from every line of her body. Her lip is worse up close. It's swollen and split at the corner where Byron's elbow caught her. The sight renews my anger, tempered now with guilt for my role in causing this injury.

Before I can think better of it, I lean down and press the softest kiss to the corner of her mouth, just beside the cut. She inhales sharply but doesn't pull away.

"What are you doing?" she whispers, eyes wide and uncertain.

The question hangs in the air between us, simple yet monumental. What am I doing? Standing in this too-small bathroom, my body a constellation of pain points from Byron's fists, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape? What compelled me to follow her here, to wait in her apartment despite knowing she might never want to see me again?

The truth crashes over me with terrifying clarity. When I walked into Byron's apartment and saw her there, something shifted inside me. Not just jealousy or wounded pride, though both were certainly present. It was fear — raw, primal, and all-consuming. Fear that I was losing her before I'd ever really had her. Fear that she'd choose Byron, choose the safer option, the known quantity, the path of least resistance.

In that moment, standing frozen in Byron's doorway, I realized I would rather take a hundred of his punches than lose her. Would rather burn every bridge, end every friendship, than give up whatever this is between us. The thought should terrify me. I've never been the guy who puts relationships first, who rearranges his life around another person. Yet here I am, blood drying on my split lip, having done exactly that.

What started as physical attraction has transformed into something I barely recognize, something that makes me want to be better, to reach for more, to shed the arrogant, entitled persona I've hidden behind for years. With her, I don't have to be the perfect student, the confident charmer, the guy with all the answers. I can just be Cade, messy and flawed and trying.

She sees through my bullshit. Calls me on it. Challenges me in ways no one else ever has. And somehow, inexplicably, she's still here despite witnessing the worst parts of me — my jealousy, my pettiness, my temper. Even tonight, after I embarrassed her, after I provoked a fight, after I made everything worse, she let me follow her into this bathroom. Let me touch her. Let me care for her.

The realization is both terrifying and liberating: I am completely, irrevocably in love with Saylor Anderson. Not the superficial infatuation I've felt before, not the possessive attachment I confused with deeper feelings. This is something else entirely, a bone-deep certainty that my life is better with her in it, even when everything else is falling apart.

If she sent me away right now, if she decided this mess we've created isn't worth the pain, I'd still be grateful for these weeks of knowing her — the real her, not the caricature I'd constructed over the past year of misunderstanding. I'd still fight for her, wait for her, hope for another chance.

Because knowing her has changed me in ways I'm only beginning to understand. Made me want to be worthy of her, made me face the uglier parts of myself I've spent years ignoring. Made me realize that true strength isn't about never showing weakness, but about being vulnerable enough to let someone see all of you — the good, the bad, the broken parts still healing.

I thought I was pursuing her, chasing what I couldn't have. But the truth is we work.

When she looked at me in Byron's apartment, with disappointment and hurt in her eyes, I knew I'd rather die than be the cause of that pain again. And when Byron's elbow connected with her face, when I saw the blood on her lip, something primitive and protective roared to life inside me — a certainty that I would do anything, endure anything, to keep her safe.

These aren't the idle thoughts of a college boy with a crush. They're the convictions of a man who's found someone worth fighting for. Worth changing for. Worth risking everything for.

"I'm sorry for how tonight went down," I tell her, my voice low and rough with emotion. "I'm sorry about your lip, the fight, all of it. But I'm not sorry for being in love with you, Saylor. I'm not sorry for fighting for what's mine."

The words hang in the air between us, a confession I hadn't planned to make but can't regret. Her eyes widen, lips parting in surprise, the bathroom suddenly so quiet I can hear each breath she takes.

"What did you just say?" she asks, voice barely audible.

"I said I'm in love with you," I repeat, the truth of it settling deep in my bones. "Completely, stupidly, head-over-heels crazy about you. Have been for a while now, probably longer than I even realized."

I kiss her injured lip again, the gentlest pressure. Then again. Each touch an apology, a promise, a question.

For a moment that stretches into eternity, she remains perfectly still. Then, with a small sound that might be surrender or acceptance or something else entirely, her arms wind around my neck, pulling me closer. Her lips meet mine, careful of the injuries we both bear, but unmistakably certain.

Relief floods through me, so powerful it nearly brings me to my knees. She may not have said the words back, may not be ready for that yet, but this kiss — tender despite our cuts, gentle despite the storm of emotions we've weathered — tells me everything I need to know.

She feels something for me too. Something real. Something worth fighting for, despite all the bullshit we just went through, the complications we've created.

She pulls back from the kiss with a small wince, her hand rising instinctively to her injured lip. The tiny flinch sends a wave of protective anger through me — not the hot, destructive rage from earlier, but something steadier, more focused.

"Let me take care of you," I say, cradling her face between my palms. "Please."

She hesitates, then nods, a nearly imperceptible movement against my hands. Permission granted.

I scan the bathroom, looking for supplies. "First aid kit?"

"Under the sink," she says softly.

I crouch down, ignoring the protest from my ribs, and rummage through the cabinet. The organized chaos of three women's bathroom supplies greets me — hairdryers, makeup bags, extra toilet paper, tampons, and finally, a white plastic box with a red cross.

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