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“No. None of that. My experience doesn’t trump yours. Everyone’s allowed to process their pain. Understand?”

I let out a watery laugh, reaching to wipe my eye. “You are sounding dangerously wise.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go back to being an intolerable asshole by tomorrow, I’m sure.”

“Unfortunately, you keep getting more tolerable by the minute.”

“Wow.” He barks out a laugh. “Did you read that off of a Hallmark card?”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one well versed in being an intolerable asshole, I guess.”

“But I like you prickly, Sour Patch,” he says with a kiss on my cheek.

I shrug him off. “I don’t like that the nickname is becoming a thing.”

“Well, obviously I will take your request into consideration.”

“I’m sure you will,” I deadpan.

“Enough trauma bonding,” he tells me pointedly, gesturing at my plate. “Finish your food before it gets cold.”

“Yes, sir,” I huff.

He winks at me. “I could get used to that.”

I shake my head, stabbing my fork into my pancake and biting back the urge to laugh.

“I wouldn’t.”

There is another stretch of comfortable silence between us, and it isn’t until I hear the clatter of Ezra’s fork against his plate that he speaks again. “But we’re…” His brow furrows, his teeth worrying at his lip as if he’s truly bothered by whatever he’s thinking. “I’m not crazy, right? There is something here. Between you and me.”

I regard him carefully, quickly passing over his emerald eyes, which are all too easy to get lost in, and his full mouth, which I never really stop thinking about, and all the wild things that come out of it that never fail to make me fume or flush, and—

“No,” I answer honestly. “You’re not crazy.”

He beams. “Practically a marriage proposal, coming from you.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“Oh, I’m already picking out china patterns.”

“Of course you are.”

“Mm. I’m thinking a June wedding. It’ll be a lavish affair.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Yuck. All those people? No thank you.”

“Not a fan of big weddings?”

“Absolutely not,” I scoff. “I’d rather get married at the courthouse on a random Tuesday.”

“How romantic.”

“That is what they say about me.”

“Mm. You’re as romantic as they come, baby.”

“Is that another endearment we are set on?”