Page 4 of Batty About You
“Of course they like me, I’m never around their beautiful daughter to put her at risk.”
That sounds bad.
But Kelly just laughs again, and it reminds me that this is always how things go between us. We laugh about anything and nothing, and the conversation bounces all over the place from music to classes to food, and our opinions almost always align. When they don’t, it doesn’t even matter, because the differences are small.
“They like you because you’re a good, respectful boy with nice penmanship who plays the oboe, babysits for his parents, has never written a letter I wouldn’t show them, and who is going to get a double major in music education and pre-med. If I were done with college, my mother would be trying to—”
She stops suddenly.
Like she’s said too much, but when I close my eyes and think hard, it’s like I can still hear her voice, feel the sound of her words vibrating in pictures, sound waves rippling past my senses.
Probably the lycan-vampire-shifter version of echolocation.
With my eyes closed and my wings wrapped tightly around my shoulders, I finish the words I see in my mind. “She’d be trying to plan our wedding.”
There’s silence.
Did I ruin things?
I’m always afraid I’ll ruin things.
Kelly’s voice is so soft, it’s less than a whisper. It’s a ghost, a beautiful, sweet ghost that strokes my mind and runs throughmy veins until it sinks into my heart. “You always know, Bogdan. You finish my thoughts. My sentences.”
“Maybe because I want the same things you want. Feel the same way you feel,” I confess.
“I have to work at the restaurant soon,” Kelly says, but her voice is suddenly thick. “But I don’t want to go. This is going to be one of my all-time favorite conversations. Favorite memories of you and me. I feel like it’s an important one. The first time you said yes to meeting me.”
“Maybeyou’llsay yes to something else I ask you on Halloween,” I reply.
This time, my own gasp blots out hers.
Did that sound like I was hinting at a proposal?
Because I absolutely was, but I shouldn’t have. She’s going to freak. She’s going to uninvite me. Her father is going to kill me.Myfather is going to kill me.
“Boggie, you wouldn’t joke about that with me, would you? Because... Because that would be mean, and you’re never mean.”
“I wasn’t joking, but I know I shouldn’t have said it. I’m rushing you—”
“I want to be with you.”
Whatever trepidation I had melts in a haze of heart and hormones. “I want to be with you. That night. All the nights. Not that I expect—”
“I have the place to myself. It’s four hours on a Friday night. I hoped you would spend the weekend with me. I have the second bedroom.” Her voice drops. “You don’t have to use it.”
“You wouldn’t think it was rushing?”
“The guy I’ve been telling my deepest secrets and fears to for seven years, the guy I’ve been talking to at least once a day for the last three years, the guy I’ve been callingnoviofor the last two years... No, Bogdan. No rush at all.”
“Kelly...” I can’t think of any other words. All I can think of is kissing her. Claiming her. Asking her to be mine.
Selfish hope that I can break a curse.
Unselfish fear that I’ll scare her.
Selfish fear that I’m about to get my heart broken. I can’t spend the weekend. I can’t marry the woman I love—not unless I tell her my secret.
Kelly murmurs, “I hate to go, but I really do have to, or I’ll be late.”
