Page 86 of Choosing Forever
“If I look at you right now, I’ll do something I shouldn’t.”
“Do it anyway.”
“I can’t?—”
Her words die at the first brush of my palms against her cheeks. No others follow as I cup her face and tip her head back until our eyes clash. I stroke my thumbs across the dried tear streaks on her skin and gulp in a breath when the desire to kiss her throttles me.
“It’s still here. You feel it. I know you do. Friendship will never be enough. It only works as the foundation beneath something more.”
“It has to be enough,” she argues weakly.
“Why? Tell me right now that you don’t think we can fall in love again.”
If we ever fell out of it at all.
Pain ripples through the green in her eyes. “I can’t.”
“Kiss me.”
“I can’t.”
“Then let me kiss you.”
It hangs there between us as both a dare and a plea. I wait, standing frozen with her face in my hands and my heart flopping like a fish out of water on her lap. She hesitates, a million emotions flickering across her face at a pace that terrifies me the longer it takes for her to speak.
“No, Darren. You’re not kissing me.”
My hands fall to rest at my sides once she pushes free of my hold. I take an off-balanced step back to make room for her to hop off the table and walk straight past me. The silence is suddenly torturous.
“Thank you for making sure my nose was okay,” she says, sounding so unlike herself I flinch.
“Don’t thank me for taking care of you.”
A heavy pause. “I’ll see you at the drive-in this week.”
“Yeah, you will.”
Hesitating with her hand on the door, she taps her foot. I wait for her to say something else, but she leaves without another word. There isn’t a damn thing I could say to make her stay, so I keep my mouth shut and groan into the empty room instead.
The chill in the air is obvious to me now that I’m alone. I expect to find my bloodied shirt on the table or even the floor, but it’s nowhere to be found. A spark of hope appears in the dark of my mind when I realize Delaney took it with her.
“What happened?” Poppy asks from the doorway.
“I moved too quickly.”
“Helpless, lovesick fool.”
I can’t deny it. “She still cares about me.”
“Don’t push her, Darren. Even if you don’t mean to. You need to be careful if you want a second chance.”
“I think I need your help.”
Her brows fly up before her mouth splits in a grin. “It’s about time you came to me. You should have known better than to rely on Bryce for romance advice.”
“She got the go-ahead for the drive-in rebuild.”
“And now? Just admit you should have come to me first.”
