Page 95 of All Autumn
He stroked his thumb over my cheek. “Why were you crying? Because you got locked in and were afraid?”
“No.”
“Tell me why.”
I didn’t want to, yet the two of us alone down here in this basement room, me sitting on his lap, and seeing so much tenderness in his eyes, the words spilled out.
“I was sad.” He didn’t say anything, just stared at me and waited. “So I cried.” Apparently that wasn’t good enough because he stayed silent. I couldn’t do this, rip my heart open for him only to have him smile and say he was ready to move on and we’d still be friends or whatever. I pushed away, scooting to the opposite side of the couch.
“Why did you cry, Autumn?” was his only response.
“Because I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you,” I yelled. “But that wasn’t why,” I said in a softer voice. “I cried because you don’t love me back.” We were still locked up in this room, or I’d make my grand exit. As that gesture was denied me, I’d just go eat the rest of Mary’s sheet cake since there wasn’t a bottle of wine down here to drown my sorrows in. I should have known she was up to something when she sent me to the basement to get the cake.
“I’m sorry I sent you flowers and a lame message. That wasn’t well done of me, but telling me to have a nice life was just sucky of you.”
“It was, and I’m sorry for that. I was angry that you were blowing me off, and that was my knee-jerk reaction. But I have another one I want you to read.”
“I didn’t get a second one from you.”
“Because I never sent it. I should have.” He reached into his back jeans pocket, brought out his phone, scrolled through it, and then handed it to me. “Read it.”
I took it from him with a trembling hand, and I wouldn’t have thought my heart could beat any faster, but it did. He wouldn’t be making me read an asshat text, not my friend Connor.
Lost: Heart belonging to Connor Hunter. Last seen in the vicinity of Autumn Archer. If found, please treat with care.
I read it a second time to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, that and because it was the most beautiful text anyone had ever sent me. Well, he hadn’t actually sent it, but he’d wanted to. Tears pooled in my eyes, but they weren’t the sad ones of earlier.
“Connor,” I breathed.
“Beautiful,” he said. “Come here. I really need you in my arms.”
And that was where I really, really needed to be. I climbed onto his lap, straddling him, still holding his phone. When he reached to take it from me, I held it away. “No, I want to read it while you make love to me.”
He laughed. “You’re weird.”
I laughed back, my heart filled to the brim with happiness. “You said that back in fourth grade when I traded you my PB&J sandwich for your tofu one.”
“I’d forgotten about that.” He leaned his head back on the couch and grinned at me. “Adam and I called Mom’s year of going vegan the worst year of our life. You didn’t really want a tofu sandwich, did you?”
“Not even, but you were hungry.”
“I think that was probably when I fell in love with you, but love wasn’t in my vocabulary at that age.”
“Is it now?” He’d as much as said he was in love with me in his text, but he still hadn’t said the words.
“My beautiful, beautiful girl, yes, I’m head over heels in love with you.”
My heart would have exploded if it could figure out how to do that. But I had to make sure he understood the one thing I couldn’t live with.
“You’ve never been serious about any woman before. If you don’t—”
He put his finger over my lips. “I know. If I don’t mean that you’re the only woman I’ll ever want for the rest of my life, I should hack my way out of that locked door at the top of the stairs and disappear right now. Do you notice me not doing that?”
I nodded.
“That’s because I love you. I’ll never cheat on you, Autumn. That’s my promise to you. I never thought I’d fall in love, never thought I’d want to. And then you came along and everything changed.”
“But I’ve been here since we were in first grade together.”
