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I pull back just enough to glance up at him, half-expecting to find him grinning, ready to unleash some final, unbearable joke.
But instead, he looks… pensive.
And maybe even, oh no.
Maybe even a little nervous.
I stare. "Did you die?"
"No." His voice is strangely tight.
"Then what - "
"So anyway," he blurts, "I also like you."
I blink.
"What?"
Elias exhales too hard, like he’s just gotten something off his chest, like he’s been suffering in silence for an unreasonable amount of time.
"You heard me," he mutters, his grip tightening slightly on the reins. "I like you. Like, like like you. Not in a ‘oh, Luna’s cool, I’d help her bury a body’ kind of way, although I would, because I’m an excellent friend, but like, in a ‘I think about you way too much and it’s ruining my life’ kind of way."
I stare at him.
He refuses to look at me.
"Elias. "
"And I wasn’t going to say anything," he barrels forward, as if he just keeps talking, he can drown out his own words. "Because, you know, I didn’t want to make things weird. But then you said you liked me, and then my brain just, " He makes a vague exploding motion with his fingers. " imploded. Like, oh gods, what if she does like me? What do I do with that? Am I ready for that? Probably not, because I’m a mess, and you’re terrifyingly attractive in a ‘I might stab you if you annoy me’kind of way, which is so my type, by the way, but also really inconvenient because …"
"Elias. "
"What if I do something stupid? Which, let’s be honest, is extremely likely. Very high probability. I say dumb shit around you constantly. My success rate for being cool is abysmally low. "
"Elias."
He finally stops.
I squint at him. "Did you just word-vomit your feelings at me?"
He groans, dragging a hand down his face. "Gods, I did, didn’t I?"
"Oh yeah." I tilt my head. "It was incredibly painful to witness."
"Fantastic." He sighs, staring straight ahead like he can pretend this isn’t happening. "So, uh… any chance you’ll just forget that happened?"
"Absolutely not."
"Yeah, figured."
I study him for a long moment, the way his grip on the reins is just a little too tight, the way his silver, not gray, hair is a mess from where I’d been pressed against him, the way his jaw is tense, like he’s waiting for me to make this worse.
So I do.
"Elias," I murmur, leaning in just slightly. "Are you blushing?"
"No."
He is.
And I’m never letting him live this down.