Page 57 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend
“Yeah, I'm just a little winded.” I smiled and leaned in to give him a hug. He hugged me back tightly, his body shaking with laughter.
“You're an idiot,” he said finally, breathless from laughing. I grinned and put a hand on his face.
“I missed your smile,” I said. He stared back at me, his eyes bright.
“I missed you,” he responded.
“I’m sorry about everything,” I murmured. “About pushing you away and Joseph showing up and… everything. I like you, Alexander. More than I have ever liked anyone before, and that scares me. But I’ll be damned if I let fear stop me from loving you the way you deserve.”
“Does that mean…” He trailed off and looked at my face searchingly. “Does that mean you want to go on a date with me, Penny Owen?”
“I do,” I whispered. He smiled wider than I’d ever seen before and brushed his fingers across my face.
“Please tell me this is the part of the movie where we get to kiss.”
“Obviously.”
He leaned in closer and kissed me on the lips. It was gentle and slow at first, but as his lips moved against mine, a fire began to burn inside of me. It was exactly how I dreamed it would be. Fireworks. Chemistry. He pulled his arm around my waist drawing me closer. I could kiss him forever. I wondered if this was how it felt to be in love.
How could something as awful as my boyfriend cheating on me would turn into me finding love in the most unexpected place? Alexander Rigby was everything I wanted and more in a boyfriend. If I hadn’t gone through all that, I wouldn’t have ended up here, in the arms of the boy I always wanted.
In some weird way, it made it all worth it.
twenty-three
Christmas day was alwayschaotic in the Owen house. It was bad enough when Elliot, Charlie, and I were kids, but by the time Carter, Flo, and Benjamin came along, any sense of normalcy was thrown out the window. Benjamin liked to wake up the whole house at four in the morning to open presents, Flo and Carter liked to work together to try to sneakily get the stockings down before the rest of us came down, us older kids were zombies running on no sleep, and my parents wanted to take a picture of every single little thing we did throughout the day, so it all took forever. But as much as I liked to complain about the insanity that was having a big family like ours, I really loved it. Even though we all fought like mad dogs sometimes, we were a close-knit family and I was grateful for that. I loved spending Christmas Day with them, even if it was always a bit chaotic.
As the kids starting playing with their new train set and my parents were making coffee, the doorbell rang.
“Oh, that will be Alexander with the bread,” Mom said. It was an annual tradition that the Rigby's made two loaves of bread for Christmas morning and brought one to our family. I jumped to my feet and practically raced to the door.
“I'll get it!” I yelled. Elliot and Charlie were laughing at me and making kissing noises, but I ignored them. I wouldn't apologize for being head over heels for my boyfriend.
As I flung it open, I saw Alexander standing there, dressed in a Christmas sweater with a solitary loaf of bread in his hand. It was wrapped in a red Christmas hand towel. My smile widened as I pulled him into a fierce embrace.
“You made it!”
He laughed, a deep, resonant sound that made my stomach flutter.
“Did you think I wouldn't? I never miss this tradition.” Then he held out a small gift bag. “Your present.”
I took it from him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You say that every year,” he said. Alexander got me the same present every year: a new charm for the bracelet his parents had bought me when I was born. When I was younger, it was obvious that his mom was just picking it out and signing Alexander’s name on it, but a couple of years ago, there was a shift where he started buying them himself.
I opened it to find a small pink box. Inside was a small silver heart. I gasped in surprise.
“It's beautiful, Alexander.”
“I thought you might like it.” He scuffed his foot on the ground. “I actually bought it back before you asked me to pretend to date… I was planning on asking you out this Christmas, anyway.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “How were you going to do it?”
“I probably would have waited until New Year's Eve,” he admitted. He took a step closer to me. “And then at midnight, instead of kissing you on the cheek like always...” We were practically nose-to-nose at this point. “I would have kissed you on the lips.”
He looked so proud as he said this, and I felt my throat tighten up with emotion. He was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I loved him absolutely everything. I leaned in to kiss him, grateful for his presence in my life.
“Thank you,” I said. “It's the best Christmas gift ever.”
