Page 98 of An Unexpected Kind of Love

My heart thuds in double time as I finally arrive on my street, having texted Blake back that I was about fifteen minutes away from home. The August night has a chill to it, my black jacket zipped up. I’m still wearing Lily’s scarf.

As I wheel down the dark street, quietish at this late hour, there’s a familiar silhouette waiting for me down the street. Cars are parked half on the pavements. Streetlamps cast a soft glow. Overhead, clouds reflect the city’s lights.

Getting closer, I see Blake leaning casually against the entry of Barnes Books, shuttered for the night. After everything I’ve been through the last few days—the flights, the angst of searching, begging strangers for info—I can’t believe I find him right where we started: at Barnes Books.

Home.

I stop to stand an arm’s length away from him. He doesn’t move, his pose languid and easy. He owns the street in his leather jacket, dark hair soft without product to keep it in place. My heart clenches. He’s so devastatingly handsome. The streetlamps cast strong shadows over his face, highlighting the striking planes of his cheekbones and his jawline.

He gazes at me, not moving. His expression’s unreadable.

“You’re in London,” I say unnecessarily. I pull up my suitcase beside me as we flank the entry to the bookshop in our nighttime tableau.

“I am.”

I take in the sight of him again. Still damnably hot. Still like he has my heart in his pocket, the thing I’ve been missing since that horrible night we fought in the hotel after the paparazzi’s photos hit the press.

The abrupt ending to something that could have been fantastic.

“I’ve been trying to find you,” I say as neutrally as I can. Luckily, my voice doesn’t waver, but it’s not quite the carefree and confident delivery I was hoping for.

I can’t read his expression in the dark. “I know.”

He knows? How does he know? Did someone tell him? Maybe one of the people I called in my frantic pleas that a desperate Englishman was roving New York looking for him?

Keep it together, Aubrey.

Keeping it together is not quite my forte.

“Look—” Blake begins, but I don’t let him go on.

“No. Listen to me.” This time, it comes out curt and urgent. Not quite detached, but confident. Despite how I’m burning up inside, despite the part of me that’s ready to unravel to feel all the feels.

His eyebrows lift. I don’t think either one of us was expecting that to come out of me.

“I went to America. I went to find you—”

Blake smiles at that.

“—and, for the record, Ihateflying and I’m not a good air traveler but I went, because it was important. Because… I couldn’t live with myself leaving things how we did. Leaving them like that because of some stupid paparazzi bollocks.”

Everything is riding on this. Because it is. My future, his future. The potential of us, together. And it doesn’t look like I’m winning, given his frown.

He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

Not good.

“I know,” I rush on. “It’s mad and desperate and pathetic and all of those things. You were clear that things had gone too far, that you weren’t comfortable with us in the media and because of your family. I can only imagine what you faced back home. And I’m sorry if it makes me sound like a creeper, because I’m really not, and if you never want to talk to me after this again, I get it. I’ll respect that. I didn’t text you because I needed to see you in person. To talk to you.”

Blake’s gaze stays fixed on me. He barely moves.

Out here, the street is empty and dark. A taxi drives by. Someone walks past us on the opposite side of the street, paying no heed. Overhead, the overcast London night reflects the soft glow of city lights. But down here, it’s only Blake and me and an ocean vaster than the Atlantic of awkward between us.

“And,” I continue, “I figured out that you were in New York auditioning for a film.Serial Kisser, I think.”

His lips twist. “Yes. That’s right. I was.”

“And I saw your Instagram—which has mostly been dark, by the way—at the New York Public Library in Manhattan. You had to be there. Obviously.”

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