Page 43 of If This Was a Movie

Nate’s head pops up, a wide smile pulling at his lips as he shuts his laptop and sets it aside, standing as well.

“I’ll walk you home,” he says.

I shake my head. “That’s really not necessary, Nate.”

“Well, it’s going to happen anyway, so get over it,” he says.

I roll my eyes before silently grabbing my things and slipping my shoes on at the back door. Maybe that’s the key to successfully handling the next month or so while maintaining my sanity: just giving in and letting Nate do whatever he wants but keeping my walls way up high, keeping myself safe.

It’s worth a try, I suppose.

“So, this is me,” I say, standing outside the small cottage, my new key in hand, even though I didn’t lock it before leaving.

He smiles, stepping closer to me. “Yeah, I know,” he says.

“Thanks for…everything. Dinner. The movies.”

“Thanks for keeping me company,” he says. He gets closer to me, and I realize too late that it’s me shifting closer to him, not the other way around. “You should come tomorrow, watch another one. Continue my romance movie education.”

I bite my lip to fight a smile, and his eyes watch, tracing the way my teeth dig into my lip there.

“We should talk, Jules,” he says, voice husky.

“About what?” I ask stupidly, even though I know the answer, of course.

“Us.”

“There isn’t an us to talk about,” I whisper.

His hand lifts, then pushes my hair back over my shoulder. I can tell myself it’s the winter chill that has a slight shiver running through me, but I know it’s the barely there graze of the tips of his fingers on the skin of my neck. His lips tip up like he saw it and knows my truth as well.

“You’re a shit liar, Jules.”

Irritation flares through me, and I step back, snapping at him

“You should know I’ve sworn off men.”

“What?” he asks with a smile as if he finds my irritation adorable.

“I swore off men. And love. And romance.” I purse my lips and put my hands on my hips. Maybe if I make myself seem bitchy and standoffish, he’ll be uninterested. “So nothing is going to happen. We had one night, and that was it.”

“It was two.”

“What?”

“Two nights that changed everything for me, and I know they did for you too. Or else you wouldn’t have kept that matchbook.”

My jaw goes tight, and I try to seem unaffected. I should have just tossed out that matchbook when I found it, but instead, I kept moving it from bag to bag. I don’t like what it reveals about me, not when I’m trying to play it off to protect myself.

“I didn’t even realize that matchbook was in there. It doesn’t mean anything,” I lie, and he smiles. Hesmiles, the arrogant asshole.

“What about bumping into each other? You can’t tell me that wasn’t some kind of sign. What did you call it then? Some invisible string kind of story, the world pulling two people together?”

My jaw tightens, but my heart skips knowing he remembers that too, a tiny thing I mentioned a year ago.

“That’s just silly movie things. Not something that happens in real life.”

His head tips to the side, assessing me, and I hate it—hate how I can feel him reading me.

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