Page 52 of Faking It Right
“Ryker.”
“—and they’re fine chairs, good chairs, but once you plop down on this one particular couch, you realize you’ve been missing out. No, that doesn’t work either. Okay, imagine you’re eating at a restaurant where you’ve ordered the same dish all your life and then?—”
“Ryker,” I interrupted again, unable to control my laughter.
He threw his hands up in exasperation. “I swear this metaphor made sense in my head.”
I took pity on him. “Please say whatever has you twisted up?”
Right when I thought he’d refuse, his ramble began. “I have feelings for you, okay? Not ‘We’re only friends’ feelings. Not just ‘I want to bang you’ feelings, although those are there, too. I mean, real, terrifying feelings. The kind where I think about you when you’re not around and wonder what you’re doing and if you’re thinking about me, too. Those kinds.”
“Oh.” The laughter evaporated in my throat. He was dead serious.
“Yeah. Fuckingoh.” He stared at me, all his usual defenses stripped away, leaving uncertain hope in his eyes. “That’s what all that bisexual doorknob bullshit was trying to explain.”
I stared at him in silence, processing the shift from ludicrous doorknobs to his heartfelt confession. A slow smile spread across my face. “So, what you’re saying is, you want exclusive rights to my handle?”
Ryker’s surprised laugh broke the tension. “Why does it sound so dirty when you say it?”
I reached out to take his hand. “I figure a guy who’d torture himself with a doorknob metaphor for that long must be serious. And for what it’s worth, I’ve been thinking about your knob for a while now, too.”
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, giving his hand a reassuring squeeze. “But maybe next time you want to drop a bombshell, just say it straight. Save the hardware analogies for when we’re arguing about doorknobs for our future house.”
His eyebrows shot up at the implication, and his familiar cocky grin made a triumphant return. “Future house, huh? You seem pretty confident about my long-term handle-operating abilities.”
“I’m willing to give you the key to see where this goes.” Joy surged through me, but I tamped it down. The moment was too important to rush. “As charming as your doorknob disaster metaphor was, I’d feel better if you said what you want clearly.”
He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “I’m saying I want this to be real. Us, I mean. But I know you don’t do the boyfriend thing. And I get it if that’s not what you want. At the same time, I don’t want to share.”
How could he think I wouldn’t want a relationship with him when I’d been daydreaming about being with him for years?
“I never wanted a boyfriend,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “because they weren’t you.”
Ryker’s eyes widened, disbelief and hope warring on his expression. “What?”
“Why do you think I’ve been flirting with you for three years?” I asked. “It wasn’t only to see you blush, although that is an adorable bonus.”
“You flirt with everyone,” he pointed out.
“Not like I do with you.” I hesitated before placing my hand over his. “Not with the same intention. And if you were my boyfriend, you’d be the only one for me. I don’t need anyone else, as long as I have you.”
Our confessions hung in the air between us. His gray eyes searched mine, as if looking for any sign I might be joking or exaggerating. But for once, I dropped the jokes and flirtybullshit. I let him see the depths of my feelings. It was terrifying. My stomach wasn’t fluttering with butterflies; it was a war zone of angry pterodactyls engaged in aerial combat.
“What happens now?” Ryker asked in an unsteady voice.
I ran my thumb along the back of his hand. “We find out what happens next.”
The words hung between us before something inside me broke. Three years of longing, of playing it cool, of pretending my heart didn’t race every time he walked into a room, all collapsed under the weight of the realization that I had a chance at everything I ever wanted.
I reached for him, one hand sliding to cradle his neck as I pulled him closer. The world tilted when our lips met. It wasn’t the desperate hunger like our other kisses but a statement. A slow, gentle claiming that said more than his disastrous doorknob speech ever could. I answered him with the same tenderness, pouring years of silent longing into the kiss.
Ryker made a soft sound against my lips, his fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. He kissed me back with equal tenderness, his usual hesitation nowhere to be found.
When we broke apart, I kept him close, our foreheads pressed together. His gray eyes were wide open, searching mine with wonder.
“I’ve wanted this since you strolled into the classroom on day one of freshman year, rocking that ‘Bach That Ass Up’ T-shirt.”
