Page 18 of Merry Me
Oh hell no.
Fuck. It was happening.
I was swooning.
Someone call 9-1-1. This was not supposed to be in the picture. He reached up to touch my hair again, and I quickly stepped out of reach, almost falling back into the bushes in the process.
I was spiraling. Full-on, sparkly, emotionally destabilizingspiral. The kind where your brain whispers,Just one kiss for nostalgiawhile your body yells,Jump him!Feel those hands…and that dick for a second for old times sake…
This was bad.
Really,reallybad.
Look, I was a pretty confident gal who believed the sight of me should be celebrated by all mankind…but having him stare at me with those green eyes that I’d possibly fallen in love with the moment I’d seen them…
Well, I was in a danger zone.
I’d wondered if there was something wrong with me the past two years, if every guy I’d met was just not doing it for me because I was building Easton up in my head. Making up a picture of him that wasn’t real.
But standing in front of him right now, it was obvious that my head had been just fine. What had been wrong with me was that I happened to date the gold standard for all men in high school, and now every guy I met would never measure up.
Fuck me.
Why did Paige have to find true love and decide to get married?
This was really inconvenient.
I had to get out of here. Now. His radiuses were going to be trouble all week, though. I wasn’t sure that I could get far enough to escape his sexiness.
“I need to go,” I muttered, sidestepping him and nearly tripping again in my haste.
“Where are you going?” he asked, laughing now. Thesexylaugh. The one I used to feel all the way down to my toes.
I didn’t answer. Just power walked like I was on a mission, muttering curses under my breath as I made a beeline for the side of the house, determined to avoid him—and everyone else—for the rest of the night.
I climbed the rickety wooden ladder one careful step at atime, the familiar creak of the boards beneath my weight bringing a weird kind of comfort.
I would think about the fact that I’d been reduced to hiding in my childhood treehouse at a later date. For now, I was just going to be hiding.
The treehouse had been here since I was little—Steve had built it when Paige had insisted on one in sixth grade—but of course, as was my nature, I’d taken it over from her, and it had become the sacred space for every big feeling I’d had growing up. Joy, heartbreak, anger, confusion—this place had seen it all.
I hoisted myself up through the hatch, brushing the dirt off my jeans as I stood inside and celebrated the fact that I’d made it to the top without dying or thinking about his arms wrapped around my waist.
It smelled like old wood and memories.
Unlike my poor room, which had been taken over by my mom’s random stuff, everything up here was just as I’d left it. The worn cushions on the floor, the small desk in the corner with my name carved into it from the summer I’d been obsessed with carrying around a pocket knife.
A weird stage, admittedly, but I’d made it cool.
Dropping onto one of the cushions, I let out a deep breath and pulled my phone from my back pocket. I needed my people. Well, my people minus Ophelia, who was morally opposed to technology unless it was mirroring Matty’s phone like the gorgeous little stalker she was.
Me: Mayday. Mayday.
Casey: This sounds serious.
Riley: As serious as I am about these Nerds Gummies.
A second later a picture of her and Ophelia eating a bag of them popped up on the screen.
