Page 45 of Accidentally Yours
“Maybe you should make this a regular thing?” Gigi suggested, with a quirked eyebrow.
“Regular?” Paige asked, her mind racing back to her time with Ethan. “Like really date him?” She’d been thinking about it nonstop, not that she’d ever admit that to anyone.
Gigi chuckled. “I meant, you should think about writing more books with him, if it’s going that well.” She gave Paige a knowing look, and Paige’s cheeks immediately went hot. “But if that’s where your head went, I’m guessing there’s something you aren’t telling us.”
Both Gigi and Alice stopped and stared at Paige. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish, not sure how to explain her Freudian slip.
“I knew it!” Alice jumped and clapped her hands. “You’re in love!”
“I’m not in love, Alice!” Paige scoffed. “That’s crazy. I think you’ve watched one too many rom-coms.”
“Lust?” Gigi asked, hooking a thumb in her apron, waiting for Paige to spill the tea.
“I—” Paige set the last box of cannoli in the cooler. She pressed a palm to her chest, like maybe she could calm the weird flutter there. “I don’t really know.”
“Which one?” Alice asked.
“You don’t know if it’s love or lust?” Gigi asked, now looking concerned.
Paige shook her head. “No, no. I mean, I like spending time with him.” Lately, she’d been catching herself smiling at nothing. Replaying moments. Analyzing the look on Ethan’s face when they wrote together. Replaying the way he’d kissed her. Soaking in how she felt when they were together . . . and feeling this silly longing when they were apart.
When Ethan had whispered,“Thanks for being my date tonight,”in that hushed theater—just the two of them in the dark, no cameras, no charade—something had shifted. He’d looked at her like she was his favorite chapter in a book he didn’t want to end. And she wanted more of that . . . more of him.
Somethinghadchanged.
Because shewasfeeling . . . real things. Big things. And it terrified her.
If she had gone from detesting to liking, could she go from liking to love? Did she even know what genuine love should feel like? All she knew for sure was that loving someone—anyone—would mean she could get hurt. And yet, whatever this was with Ethan . . . she wanted to keep it. She wanted to stuff it in a bottle and cork it, make sure it couldn’t slip away.
“What’s that look?” Gigi asked, breaking Paige out of her thoughts.
Paige ran a hand over her face. “I don’t know what my face is doing, but I’m confused. That’s what my face is trying to say.”
“About?” Alice asked, tilting her head.
Paige swallowed and then spit out what her friends’ questions had pushed her to consider. “I don’t think I’ve been in love before.”
They both froze. “Ever?” Alice and Gigi asked together.
Paige shook her head. She shrugged. She rocked from her heels to her toes. What a rollercoaster her brain had been on in the last minute.
“Not even with Derek?” Alice asked.
“No.” Paige shook her head again. “I mean, I cared about him. I loved him. But was I in love with him?” She paused and her friends held their breath. “I don’t think so. It didn’t feel like this. It didn’t feel like Ethan.”
Both Alice and Gigi gasped, sucking the air out of the tent. Then they squealed. A man from the tomato booth gave them all a bemused side-eye, then went back to stacking vegetables in perfect rows.
“Okay,” Gigi said, fanning herself with a napkin. “So just to confirm—your fake boyfriend has turned into your real crush?”
Alice leaned over the table, eyes wide. “I knew those pictures of you guys kissing couldn’t be fake!”
“It didn’t feel fake. At least, for me,” Paige admitted with a sigh. But what was she supposed to do with the feelings bubbling inside her? Especially now that she’d voiced them to the world—at least, her world. “But I don’t know what to do with any of that.” Her hands flew about in front of her, like she was trying to scatter away all the strange, bold emotions that had crept up on her.
Gigi stopped fanning herself, dropping her hand to her side. “You know. You write romance, for goodness’ sake. You’re just scared.”
“Which is valid,” Alice added, softly. “I’ve never seen you like this. I kind of love it.”
Paige looked away, out at the fresh-cut flowers and people lining up at the entrance gate. “What if he doesn’t feel the same way? What if itwasjust part of the show for him and I’m completely making this all up in my head? I have a good imagination, you know.”
