Page 77 of What You Wish For

“You smell like honeysuckle,” he said, while I was clicking the buckle.

“That’s my shampoo,” I said, and just as I pulled away, he leaned in closer to take a deeper sniff—and his face collided with the back of my head.

“Oh, God,” I said, leaning closer to see if he was hurt. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

He just smiled up at me. “I’m fine.”

Do you know what love-struck looks like? It’s so hard to describe—something about the eyes, just open and admiring and maybe even a little bit wonder-filled, like they’re drinking in the sight of you. That’s the only word I can come up with for his expression.

Safe to say, it was not a look I got very often—especially not from him.

He looked down at my blouse. “I knew you’d be wearing polka dots.”

Lisa watched me as I closed the car door. “He’ll sleep a lot today, but he should be pretty normal tomorrow,” she said. “And the painkillers cause nausea for most people, so he won’t want to eat, but he needs to do it, anyway. Especially before the next round of pills.”

“Gotcha,” I said.

“He should sleep in a loose T-shirt tonight—or shirtless if the skin is irritated,” she said. “It’s all in the instructions. And you might want to put him in some sweatpants when you get him home,” the nurse said. “He was supposed to arrive in something comfortable, but he showed up in a suit.”

“He really loves suits,” I said.

“They really lovehim,” she said, giving me a wink.

“Noted,” I said, with a nod.

She snagged one last glimpse of him through the car window and shook her head. “Adorable.”

On the drive home—I swear, this is true—as I sat beside him in the backseat of the car, Duncan held his empty hand as if there was a phone in it, peering at it and saying, “I’m sorry. I think we’re lost. My phone’s not working.”

I didn’t even know how to begin to correct him, so I just said, “Don’t worry. I know the way.”

He shook his head. “But you’ve never been to my place.”

“But our driver has the address.”

Duncan frowned and blinked. “We have a driver?”

I pointed up at the guy in the front seat. Then I said, “They really doped you up, huh?”

“Yes,” Duncan said. “It was nice of them. They know I don’t like… surgeries.”

“Does anybody like surgeries?” I asked.

“Probably not,” Duncan said. “But I don’t like them the most.”

He tried to check his phone again.

He didn’t seem drunk, exactly. He wasn’t slurring his words. He just seemed really, really relaxed. And, also, like the world he saw through his eyes and the actual world were not exactly the same thing.

Next, partly to distract him, but mostly because Lisa had made me curious, I said, “The nurse said you were talking about me.”

He gave a big nod. “Yes. Yes, I was. I told them about the day we met.”

Oh. “That,” I said, “was not my best day.”

“Are you kidding me?” Duncan said, squinting over at me to see if I was serious. “I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Like, ever.”

“Oh,” I said, frowning. “Really? ’Cause—”

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