“Why does it make you mad?” he asked, looking genuinely confused. “I can understand not feeling the same, but why does it make you so angry? I’m allowed to love you, Duff, even if you don’t love me back.”
“That’s what’s so wrong,” I said, feeling a sharp pain in my chest. I missed him so much while at the same time I wanted to kill him. Which also pissed me off. “You’re dropping the big L-word in this really vulnerable way, like poor Connor is heartbroken and emotional, when it’s not like that at all and it’s unfair that you’re hijacking my emotions. You’re not allowed to steal my heartbreak and paint it as yours when you’re the one who—”
“Hijacking your emotions?” he interrupted, his face unreadable as his eyes searched mine intently. “Does that mean…?”
I wanted to be elusive and coy, I wanted to hang on to my anger, but I couldn’t.
So I only nodded, blinking fast so he didn’t see me cry stupid tears.
That made him sit up, but he still managed to hold me against him as he rose to a sitting position on the busy sidewalk. “You love me?”
“I mean, kind of,” I said neutrally—as neutrally as I could while crying—as if it weren’t the first time I’d ever said that to anyone I wasn’t related to.
“You kind of love me?” he said loudly, his mouth splitting into a huge grin. “Even after I was the biggest asshole?”
“What—are you trying to talk me out of it?” I said, every cold part of me thawing as he smiled at me like I was his sun and his moon.
“No,” he said, raising a hand and stroking his finger over my cheek. “But I’m terrified that I’m misunderstanding and that you still hate me.”
I shook my head. “I never hated you.”
“You literally said, ‘I hate you,’ ” he said around a laugh.
“But there’s a thin line between love and hate, right?”
“That’s right, there is.” He pressed his forehead against mine, and his eyes were all I could see. “So you love me.”
I swallowed and let my eyes close, breathing in the closeness of him. “So I love you.”
Our lips met, and all my pent-up emotions went into the kiss, feeling every bit of love and need and pure joy in his arms. The rest of the city—the world, the planet, the universe—disappearedas he kissed me in the middle of the sidewalk as if no one else existed.
As if I was his everything.
And a couple hours later, when we finished our impromptu White Castle brunch at the Commons (making out on a city sidewalk can make you hella hungry) and headed back home, I knew he was mine.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Duffy
“Are you ready, Ms. Distefano?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding and getting out of the green room chair. “I’m ready.”
I followed the intern, shaking out my nervous hands while hoping I wouldn’t fall down or pass out. Even though I’d done this before, I was still crazy-nervous to be in front of a studio audience.
We stopped at the edge of the curtain and waited, and as soon as Kel said, “Please welcome Duffy Distefano,” the intern gestured for me to move and I was walking out onto the stage.
“Welcome back, Duffy,” Kel said with her blindingly white grin as I sat down. “You’ve kind of had a lot going on since the last time you were here.”
“You could definitely say that,” I said, reminding myself to smile while I tried to pretend everyone in the studio audiencewasn’tlooking at me.
“Well, we want to hear all about it,” Kell said, his bright grinmatching that of his cohost wife’s. “But first, we’re going to bring out another guest so we can discuss it together.”
“How fun,” I said perkily, unfazed because Connor told me they’d invited him and we’d actually ridden to the station together.
I definitely wasn’t getting surprised this time.