“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“It suited you. It was edgy and cool.”
His mouth drops open. “Seriously? Those words have never been used to describe me. Not in my entire life.”
“What words normally describe you?”
“Pasty, geek, nerd, boring. All of those.”
Does nobody know this man? How the hell can people really think that of him?
“I think you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
21
DECLAN
I ’m gaping, I know. But how the fuck can she say that with a straight face? “There’s nothing interesting about me, Cara. I wish there was.” She chokes on her sip of coffee, slapping her chest. I rear up, panicking. Reaching for her.
“I’m ok,” she says, waving me off. She gulps in a few breaths, finally calming. Only then can I sit down. She sits back in the booth, looking at me questioningly. “Do you really think that? That you’re boring?”
“I know I am.”
“Huh,” she mutters, her head tilted. Studying me.
As always, when the full force of her is focused on me, I want to squirm. But she shouldn’t have any illusions about me. I want her. I want to be someone special to her. But the truth is, I’m boring as fuck, and she’ll get sick of me quick.
“Why did you run away from me all the time?”
Shit. We’d kinda dropped this earlier, and I was hoping she’d forget to pick it up. Busying myself stacking our plates and lining up the cutlery, I give her the truth.
“The other women I dated...my feelings for them were...simple. We liked each other, it was easy. My feelings for you aren’t simple. At all. On top of that, I always feel a little out of my league with you.” I stop fiddling with the cutlery and move on to the salt and pepper shakers. “You’re so confident, Cara. You know exactly who you are. And I didn’t really know how to...fuck. I don’t know the right words here. Not compete, not handle...I didn’t know how to be the kind of man who could be with someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Yeah. You seem to know exactly who you are, and until...that night, you seemed like you could take on the whole world and win.”
Her fingers are tight around her cup as she clutches it to her chest. When I finally get the guts to look at her face, my shoulders relax at her wide eyes. She’s not completely disgusted by me. First hurdle cleared. Now for the next. Being this honest should get easier, shouldn’t it? So far, I still feel like I’ve stripped naked and I’m doing squats in the middle of a church service. Exposed.
“I’ve been...working on myself over the last few months.”
“What do you mean, ‘working’ on yourself? Do you mean physically?” she asks, waving her hand in front of her.
“Sort of. That’s part of it. But it’s mainly about being more...confident. I thought if I felt more comfortable in my skin and out there in the world, that maybe we...”
I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. Maybe we’d date. Maybe you’d love me. Maybe you’d want me.
“Holy fuck,” she whispers, eyes wide. “You’re shy.”
My face heats, but I nod. She’s not wrong. “Yeah. And I have a highly developed flight response when it comes to you.”
“The running.”
“Yep.”
She carefully places her coffee cup on the table, leaning in. “So you’re telling me that you’ve...liked me all this time? But you were too shy to do anything about it?”
“It sounds even lamer when you say it like that,” I mutter, dropping my hands to my lap.