“Hey,” I said, my voice airy and lost in the silence of the hallway.
“Hey,” Bennet said, a little more firmly.
“Hi.”
His lips twitched near a smile, then smoothed again. “You said that.”
“You came,” I pointed out.
Bennet nodded. “Of course I came.”
“I didn’t think you would,” I admitted.
He hesitated, taking a step toward me. He cocked his head as he looked up at me. “My reputation was at stake,” he said.
That pulled a laugh out of me, and I wasn’t even sorry. “Is that all?”
He gave in, smiling with one corner of his mouth. As he stepped a little closer still, he paused, straightened, and took a step back. “I came to apologize,” he said.
I waved my hand over my shoulder. “Nothing to apologize for, Bennet. Nothing happened. Besides, I should be the one apologizing.” Saying the words hurt unexpectedly, but I put a smile on my face for him. A smile he didn’t buy.
He shook his head. “You told me you loved me,” he said carefully, making my ears burn.
He waited.
The silence dragged on and left me flustered, a little uncomfortable, and a little dizzy. “I did,” I said, mouth dry and tongue touching my lip briefly.
“And I…” He paused again, looking out the window for a moment before forcing his gaze to meet my eyes. “It freaked me out.”
I forced a laugh. “I have that effect on people.”
“It freaked me out because I’m not…like you,” he said.
“Like me?”
“You know…fun. Interesting. Popular and hot and confident and good-looking and the whole package, Jason,” Bennet blurted. “I’m not romantic, even if I’d like to be. I’m not funny. I don’t even bring fun facts to a party. The idea that someone who ticks all those boxes would even notice me in an empty room full of chairs is crazy to me.” He noticed my grin and frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. Go on,” I said, but the smile won over again, shining.
“Say it.”
“You think I’m funny,” I pointed out. “You just said it.”
“And hot and a whole list of things,” Bennet said, just bewildered enough to have that adorable look on his face.
“Yeah, but funny,” I said. “You admitted it.”
His smile snuck up on him, and he shook his head. “Yeah, I think you’re funny. And cocky as hell, by the way. You don’t need encouraging.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know that.”
“That you’re funny?” Bennet asked.
Maybe I was stalling on purpose. Maybe I wanted us to talk about something insignificant sothat we wouldn’t talk about the big L. But it wasn’t insignificant. People rolled their eyes when I made jokes. They folded their arms, raised their eyebrows, and tilted their heads in the “Seriously?” way. I was never going to crack clever jokes to make the NASA scientist chuckle to themselves, but if stupid jokes made Bennet think I was funny, then I loved him twice as hard.
I loved him. There was no changing it.
“My point is that hearing you say, erm, those words instinctively made me think you’d hit your head in practice, Jason,” he said.