Page 162 of Reckless
“Okay,” I admitted.“This was an excellent call.”
“I know.”
“You cannot say I know every time you’re right.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes you insufferable.”
“You seem to be suffering just fine.”
“That is the worst sentence you’ve ever said to me and I’ve heard you say many terrible sentences.”
He looked entirely too pleased with himself.
I pointed my spoon at him.“That.”
“What.”
“That version of you.”
He tilted his head.“Competent.”
“No.Smug because you were right about dessert.”
“That sounds earned.”
I laughed again.
And because the night had gone soft around us and because wine and candlelight and this impossible, ordinary happiness had lowered my guard to almost nothing, I heard myself ask, “When did you know?”
His gaze held mine.“Know what.”
“That you loved me.”
He didn’t answer right away.
That too was intimate.
Finally he said, “You want the first moment or the one I couldn’t argue with?”
My heart did something stupid and girlish and entirely against my wishes.
“Both.”
Something moved in his face.“The first moment was probably the Pictionary game.You captured my attention the first night we met but a week later, we were all at my parents and that was the first glimpse.”
I blinked.
The whole room seemed to get warmer.“Why?”
He leaned back slightly, one hand around his wine glass.“Because you were terrible at drawing and so angry about it.”
I stared at him.“That does sound like me.”
I was still laughing when I took another sip of wine.“And the one you couldn’t argue with.”
He watched my face and said, “You were angry about it like it still mattered to you even though you’d already accepted that no one was going to save it.”His gaze dropped briefly to the spoon in my hand and then came back up.“You looked like someone who kept loving things even after the world failed them.”
