Page 101 of Keep My Heart
‘It kind of felt like a setup,’ Lyndsay says with a nervous laugh. ‘The picnic. The romantic setting.’
‘Yeah.’ I take a deep breath and let it out.
‘Nick, I—’
‘I need to talk to you,’ I blurt out, needing to say this before I change my mind.
‘I was going to say the same thing.’
‘I really need to go first, if you don’t mind.’
‘Go ahead.’ She turns so she’s facing me, crossing her legs in front of her.
‘I can’t keep doing this.’
‘Doing what?’ she asks, sounding concerned.
‘Whatever this is we’re doing. Pretending to be friends, but acting like we’re more than that.’
Her brows draw together. ‘So what are you saying? That we shouldn’t be friends anymore?’
‘No. I mean, yes, I want to be friends, but I also .?.?.’ I take another breath. ‘I want more than that. I can’t just be friends with you.’
Her face softens and a slight smile appears. ‘When you say you want more, what exactly does that mean?’
I move closer to her and take her hand. ‘It means I want to date you, for real, not this fake dating shit we were pretending to do. I don’t want to help you find someone else. I want you to be withme.’ I look into her eyes. ‘Last week was pure misery. You were all I could think about. I’d go home at night and wish you were there. I’d be at work and everything would remind me of you.’
‘The same thing happened to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. But I didn’t think you wanted this. You keep saying how work is all you have time for and how you don’t want a girlfriend right now.’
‘And I’d probably still be saying that if you hadn’t come back into my life. But you did, and now I don’t want you to go.’ I look down at her hand in mine. ‘I just don’t know how to make this work.’
‘But I bet you’ve thought about it and you have an idea.’ She scoots closer to me. ‘Nick, just tell me. Tell me what you want.’
I look at her. ‘I want you to move to New York. I know it’s selfish of me to ask and I’ll completely understand if you tell me no, but it’s the only way I think this will work. I want us to have a chance, but that won’t happen if we’re thousands of miles apart.’
‘I agree.’
‘You what?’ I say, thinking I must’ve heard her wrong. There’s no way she’d just agree to it, just like that. It’s too easy.
‘I agree that I should move to New York.’
‘You’re serious,’ I say, still not believing her. ‘You’d really give up your life in LA to move to New York?’
‘LA isn’t my home. I have some friends there, but I could still talk to them after I move. And as for my job, it’s only part-time andI really don’t like it there. I was going to start looking for jobs when I got back.’
‘What about your other job? Teaching yoga?’
‘I could do that anywhere.’
‘Lyndsay, I only want you doing this if it’s what you want. I don’t want you doing this for me.’
‘I’m not. This is what I want. It’s all I’ve thought about since you left. There’s just something about you, Nick, something that makes me want to be with you. Even in high school I felt something for you, but I wouldn’t let myself go there because of Chris. But when I saw you again at the airport last week, all those feelings came back, except now I could let myself feel them.’
I stare at her, not believing what she’s saying. ‘If you had feelings for me back in high school, you did a damn good job hiding them.’
‘I had to. I was with Chris, and even if I hadn’t been, I didn’t think you’d ever go out with me.’
‘Are you kidding? You were the girl I dreamed about. To say I had a crush on you is an understatement. But you’re right. Even if you weren’t with Chris, I wouldn’t have asked you out. I was a nerd and you were head cheerleader. I wouldn’t have asked you out because I knew you’d turn me down.’
