I’m tempted to ask her, but it wouldn’t be right or fair—not with the inebriated state she’s in. So, instead, I ask, “What’s the problem, then?”
Blondie rolls her eyes. “The problem is they think you like me. Like…likelike,” she clarifies.
My heart slams into my rib cage as disappointment chafes at every inch of my soul, rubbing me raw. I never knew words could hurt so much, but hearing that me liking her is aproblemis a new kind of pain I wasn’t prepared for.
She stares at me, waiting for my response. I swallow down the hard lump in my throat. “That’s a lot of likes,” I deadpan.
She sighs again. “Mmhmm.”
Blondie rests her chin on top of her folded arms, slumping over the table, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look so dejected. Weirdly, it makes me optimistic. It makes me wonder if I’m misreading the situation, and the problem isn’t that I like her, but that she’s convinced herself I don’t. That she believes her mom and aunt are wrong.
That conviction might be totally off, but it makes me brave. Brave enough to say, “Who says I don’t?Likelike you, I mean.”
Blondie blinks those lovely eyes at me behind her glasses, which have slipped a bit farther down her nose, and the hope I find in them has my heart leaping over the damn moon. The disappointment that filled me before evaporates as quickly as the dew coating morning grass on a hot day until I’m brimming instead with an elation that has me near to bursting.
Holy shit, I was right. Blondielikesme. Not just physically—not just for sex—butromantically.
But if that’s true…why does she look so unhappy?
Her bottom lip juts out in a deep pout. “Because, Hallucination Damian,” she retorts, her tone chiding, “RealDamian doesn’t do girlfriends.”
I wonder if I should be alarmed that Blondie thinks I’m just a figment of her imagination, or if I should correct her by making it clear that I’m actually here. Maybe it’s fucked up that I don’t. But I can count on one hand how many times she’s been candid about her feelings toward me (including those early days when her emotions were fairly singular and isolated to rage and loathing), and I don’t want to miss out on this chance to understand what she’s thinking. To see behind the mask she keeps insisting on wearing around me, even though I’ve stripped back mine.
So, I step into a new role: the one she needs me to play. A role that will let me be there for her, to listen to whatever she’s willing to tell me, even if the only way she’ll open up is if she believes this is all in her head.
“He said that, huh?” I ask, committing to the part. “What a bastard.”
And it’s the truth. Iama bastard, so I suppose it’s only fitting that my proclamation from what feels like a lifetime ago should come back to haunt me.
“Yup,” she mumbles, heaving yet another dispirited sigh, and it takes everything in me not to reach across the table and touch her hand.
“What if he did?” The words are out before they’ve even fully formed in my head. At the question in her gaze, I clarify, “What if Real Damian wanted a girlfriend?”
What if I want you to be my girlfriend? Not a fake one but a real one.
I don’t know what I expect her to say, but it isn’t the “I don’t know” she whispers.
I bristle at the uncertainty in her voice. “Is it the bet? I wouldn’t blame you if you still haven’t forgiven him.”
She surprises me again by fervently shaking her head. “It’s not that. And I do forgive him,” she adds with a vehemence that squeezes my chest.
She hasn’t said it before—not outright—and I was starting to doubt she ever would. Not just say it, but truly forgive me. But now, actually hearing it…
It’s like music to my fucking ears.
“I just haven’t been honest with him.” When I don’t press her on the matter, she arches a brow and says, “Aren’t you going to ask me about what?”
I nearly tell her, “I don’t have to. I know.” But I stop myself before the words can slip free.
This is it. I’ve been waiting for her to talk to me about this. To open up. But now that we’re here, I don’t know what to think. On one level, this seems wrong, like I’m tricking her into it, while on another, I can’t help thinking this might be the only way she’ll ever feel safe enough to say it.
I don’t know how to answer her, what the correct option is, so I settle somewhere in the middle, leaving the decision up to her.
“Only if you want to tell me.”
She considers that for a moment before sitting up straight, her eyes slightly clearer than they were when I first walked into the bar.
“My mom has cancer. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia. They caught it early, so if we’re lucky, she’ll go into remission and we’ll have more time.”
