Page 82 of Absolutely Not in Love
Her eyes widen, and she catches her bottom lip between her teeth, a question in her gaze.
“I don’t want us to just be dating. I want us to be exclusive. I want…” My words trail off, and I close my eyes, suddenly feeling stupid.
Gracie’s palms slide up and around my neck. “Felix, I’ve been with you every spare second for weeks. I don’t want to date anyone else. I want exclusive, too.” She smiles. “I want official.”
We kiss one more time, this one lasting long enough that her brother finally yells at us from across the rink. “Hey, there’s a child present,” he says. “Might want to dial things back a little.”
Gracie laughs against my lips, then pulls away and smiles up at me.
I lift my hands to either side of her face. “Today has made me very happy,” I say.
She holds my gaze for a long moment. “Me too.”
I almost tell her I love her. Right here on the ice with her family watching. But then she shifts and moves away from the wall, skating away from me.
“Come on,boyfriend,” she says over her shoulder. “I’m tired. I think I’m ready for you to take me home.”
Fire flashes in her eyes, and I get the distinct impression she isn’t as tired as she claims. Which could mean very good things for me.
I follow quickly behind, powerless to do anything else.
I’ll follow her anywhere. Whatever it takes. Whatever she wants.
I’m hers.
Chapter Twenty
Gracie
“Idon’twanttojinx it by saying things with Felix are perfect,” I say into my phone, “But Summer, I really think things are perfect.”
It’s only been a week since we made things official at the rink after Maddox’s party, so I’m willing to own that I’m very much in the honeymoon stages of a brand-new relationship. But it’s just so easy with him. Like our relationship was always meant to exist. Like we were always meant to be together.
“Girl, you ride that perfect wave as long as it lasts,” Summer says. “And please start telling me all the dirty details whenever you’re ready.”
I roll my eyes. “Or,” I say pointedly, “you can tell me your favorite Christmas song and help me plan my winter orchestra program.”
“Boooring,” she sing-songs. “But fine. How aboutAngels We Have Heard on High?”
“Okay, let’s make this easier. Your choices areJingle BellsorUp on the House Top.”
“Wow. So many great choices,” she says.
I sigh and push away the bin of middle school orchestral scores. “You’re right. These are terrible choices. I think I have to buy new music this year.”
“Well, you’ve got a sugar daddy now,” Summer says. “Just mention you’re in the market, and he’ll probably buy you every middle school Christmas arrangement ever arranged.”
“You know, I get the sense that you’re making fun of me right now, and I don’t think I like it,” I say.
“You lovemethough, and you always will,” Summer says. “Gotta go. Call me after your audition! I wanna know how it goes.”
“Will do,” I say. I hang up my phone, happy to have talked to Summer through at least most of my seventh-period planning. Twenty more minutes before the bell rings, then a faculty meeting that hopefully won’t last longer than an hour, and I’ll be on my way to my audition with the Knoxville Symphony.
It’s not that I don’t love playing in Harvest Hollow. I do. And I’ll keep playing with them whether I get the spot in Knoxville or not. But Knoxville is a bigger city. That means better pay and more frequent gigs. More gigs? More money.
Summer was right when she implied Felix would spoil me if I let him, and believe me,I do.But it’s still important to me that I made my own way.
Abandoning my sheet music, I scroll back up to my last text message exchange with Felix, in which we argued about the top five greatest authors of the twentieth century. We agreed on John Steinbeck and Toni Morrison, but there’s no way I’m keeping Ernest Hemingway over F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce, no matter what Felix says.
