Page 136 of Happiness for Beginners

I turned it off.

Jake watched Mike’s picture on the screen go blank. “You’re just going to turn it off?” Jake asked.

I nodded.

“Aren’t you curious why he’s calling?”

“I know why he’s calling.”

“Why?”

“To beg me to come back.”

“You don’t want to be begged?”

I shook my head the tiniest bit. “Not by him.”

Jake narrowed his eyes, all flirty. “Who do you want to be begged by?”

But I just smiled.

“So,” Jake said, watching me. “I’ve just confessed how horribly I love you.”

I nodded.

“What do you think of all that?”

Here, dangling above our deaths, it didn’t seem like a good idea to be coy. So I just looked into Jake’s eyes and said, in what felt like slow motion, “I love you horribly, too.”

He shook his head in amazement. “But how? When did that happen?”

I thought about it. “It might, actually, have started when you almost peed in that Evian bottle.”

He smiled and gave a nod. “Works every time.”

“Or,” I went on, “it might have been when you spelled the word ‘lascivious.’ Or when you forgot to dry off your collarbone and just left all those droplets of water. Or when you fell during the bear hang.”

“These are the things that work with women?”

“Or,” I went on, thinking, “it might have been how you kept rescuing me from Beckett, even when I didn’t deserve it. Or how tender your hands were when you bandaged my knee. Or the way you do the right, brave, kind-hearted thing in every situation, no matter what. Or maybe it’s just the way that I always, invariably, feel happier when I’m near you.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“I did hate you. In that way you hate people you’re in love with.”

“On the trip, too?”

I nodded.

“That whole time?”

I nodded.

“You sure hid it well.”

“I thought you liked Windy.”

“Even when I mauled you down by the stream?”

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