“I did.” His voice settled into something steady. “You were good. With the game. With the group.”
“I’m glad I didn’t embarrass you.”
“You didn’t. They liked you.”
“Did you?” I bit my lip and held my breath.
His breath hitched, too. The faint sound stirred the space between us. He spoke in a quiet tone. “Yes. I liked you there.”
A tight rush moved through my chest. My body leaned closer without any conscious thought. Our shoulders brushed. The contact was small, but it sent a warm pull through me that settled low in my stomach.
Bennet swallowed. The motion drew my eyes to the line of his throat. The delicate shadow along his jaw. The slight curl of his hair near his temple. His lips stood out the most. Full. Sharp. Shaped in a way that made them impossible to ignore now that they were close.
I tried to look away. I couldn’t. I couldn’t tear my gaze off his lips.
“You looked happy tonight, too,” I said. I was repeating myself. I was throwing out words at him just so he wouldn’t turn around and walk home. I was three ideas away from asking his opinion about the weather.
He parted his lips in a slow exhale. “I laughed more than I expected.”
“You should do more of that.”
His mouth curled at the corners. “Help me laugh, then.”
“I can do that,” I said softly. Too softly. My voice had dropped without warning, and he sensed it. His eyes sharpened in this focused way, as if bracing for some kind of shift.
I stepped in a little closer and let my voice lower again. “I like seeing you relaxed. It suits you.”
He went still, the opposite of what I’d just said. He didn’t lean in, but he didn’t step back either. His eyesflicked to my mouth. It lasted only a moment, but my whole spine tingled.
He looked away fast, like he had stepped to the edge of a cliff and seen how far the drop went. “You say things like that too easily.”
“Is that a problem?”
“It feels like you don’t think before you speak.”
“I think,” I said, then thought about it. He might have had a point. “Sometimes.”
A tiny laugh escaped him. A small breath of warmth between us. “You confuse me.”
“That makes two of us. You confuse me, too.”
He blushed again. Not dramatically or loudly. A quiet warmth crept over his cheeks and made him look even more like someone I shouldn’t be staring at. So innocent and sweet underneath the scowls. I wanted to touch his face. I kept my hands to myself because I knew something sharp was gathering between us, and I didn’t want to break it too soon.
He looked toward the street. His house glowed far down the lane. The moment stretched thin. It felt like a bubble that any wrong breath might burst.
“Let’s do this again sometime,” I said.
His hand lifted like he meant to fix his hair, then fell back into his coat pocket. It was such a small, uncertain gesture that it felt intimate just to witness it.
He nodded. “Good night, Jason,” he said, soft as the wind.
I didn’t move. “I’ll walk you to your door.”
“You already walked me to your door.”
“Then let me walk you back.”
He hesitated long enough for my pulse to thud faster. He held my gaze for a moment that stretched and stretched. Something fragile sat in his eyes, and something brave sat beside it. “Fine,” he murmured.