Page 84

She handed me a freshly opened can of Coke and sat down in the chair next to me. “Just dicked down,” she deadpanned, nodding seriously, and the Coke that had barely hit my tongue sprayed straight out of my mouth and into her face.
“Oh my god, I can’t with you today!” she screeched, wiping a sweater-covered hand over her features. “Get it together,” she snapped—both her words and her fingers. “Jesus.”
I was laughing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath, and she followed suit. Because honestly, this is what best friends were made for—laughing with you through the things that had the potential to break you.
“It’s pretty crazy, though—you, in love.” She nudged my leg with her foot.
“Apocalyptic, right?” I huffed out a breath.
Her mouth twisted up on one side as she nodded.
If everything wasn’t so up in the air, I didn’t think it would’ve been so bad—loving Neil. It didn’t feel half bad as it was. Not after some time of having no other option than to let it sink in.
Even if I ended up walking away without it, blazing in scorching flames of failure behind me, I was kind of glad to have ticked this first off with someone like Neil.
Sweet, genuine, mostly pure.
Even if hewascapable of making his own stupid mistakes, too.
My heart twisted inside my chest at the thought just as my phone vibrated in my hands.
Lol. What are you doing right now?Neil finally messaged me back.
At a lame party with Syd,I typed out slowly.I was still trying to calm my heart and reel in the panic from what I’d almost told him, sitting right here in our message box as a glaring reminder.
Lame? Really?he replied.That sucks. I only just got here.
My head snapped up, eyes immediately searching the backyard for him. I scanned every head at the party at least three times with no luck, until I found him stepping through the slider after my fourth scan, a smirk twisting his lips.
My heart went crazy. Literally, inexplicably, crazy at the sight of him.“Holy fuck,”I whispered under my breath, too many feelings flooding me at once, that four-lettered word taking up majority occupancy.
I wanted to bolt. I wanted to stand up and walk across this party and (in my craziest fantasy) watch him fall at my feet.
Dark jeans, black beanie, a plaid button-up beneath a tan jacket, and shoes of the same color covered him from head to toe—all perfectly fitted to his body. All of it making the breath in my lungs disappear entirely. All ofhim.
It was overwhelming, all the things I felt for him then.
No way could I pretend to be his friend right now. My heart had dug itself out if the dark pit it was living in and stupidly declared itself his, and I didn’t know how the hell to hide it from him anymore. Especially not when I was taken off-guard like this, him waltzing through the party, looking like that, after the confession that had almost gone down but was still perched right at the tip of my tongue as I openly gawked at him.
It was the last possible scenario I’d imagined for tonight—Neil, randomly showing up to this party. Looking casual, and confident, and comfortable, and good enough to—
I cleared my throat, swallowing the consuming thought down.
His eyes glittered the closer he got to me, his smirk shifting into a perfect, soft smile, and it stole my trapped breaths and held them hostage. My heart unlatched its cage, waltzed on out, and handed itself right over to him.
Because it was definitely his now, whether he wanted it or not.
I felt it beating in perfect synchrony to the letters of his name.
“Hey, Liv.” He bit down on his bottom lip, and I looked down at my lap. Took the space of a breath to collect myself before looking back up at him.
“Hey.” I smiled.
I was used to the usual chaos he created inside my brain; it was the silence that was disconcerting.
No fires, no mental traffic jams, no chaos.
It was just Neil and me and a party that had somehow disappeared all around us.