I bend and kiss the top of her head. She looks so small and vulnerable and I can’t help but show her some sort of affection. I mean—I’d like to do a whole lot more, but we are in public.
“Just so you know, I don’t mean to call you Princess in a bad way.” She snorts. “Seriously,” I add. “It just … suits you.”
She looks up at me, her hair falling behind her shoulders. “Why don’t I believe you?”
I chuckle and hold up my fingers with a little space in between. “Okay, so maybe I did mean it sarcastically just a little bit.”
“Only a little bit, huh?” She laughs, and her eyes sparkle with amusement.
God, I love this girl.
My thoughts stop me cold.
Love? I love this girl?
Fuck, I think I do. No, I know I do.
I’ve never loved another girl before—have nothing to compare this feeling to—but I know that’s what it is.
Somewhere along the way, I fell in love with Grace.
I fell in love with her smile.
Her laugh.
The way she mocks me every chance she gets.
I fell in love with her love of chocolate and coffee.
I fell in love with every little thing that makes her her.
Six months ago, the thought of falling in love would’ve made me laugh, but something I’ve learned in my life is that things never seem to happen the way you expect them to.
I stare at her with a newfound wonder in my eyes, and she doesn’t miss it.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks. “Is there something on my face?”
Now that I know I love her—that I’m in love with her—I want to blurt the words out, but I don’t want to scare her. I haven’t even talked to her about making our arrangement official—becoming a real couple—but it’s something that’s been weighing heavily on my mind the past few days. Being near her twenty-four-seven has made me fall
harder for her instead of scaring me away.
“Nah. You’re perfect,” I whisper.
“Then why are you looking at me like that?” She wrinkles her nose.
I shrug. “I was just thinking, I guess.”
“About what?”
You. Us. A future. “About our awesome tattoos,” I lie.
She laughs and looks down at the black outline of a crown. “Yeah, I think we both did good.”
We finish up and pay and walk to a coffee shop we passed on our way here.
It’s cold outside and the sky is a swirling gray, promising snow. Snow had already fallen on campus when we left, but the grass has been bare here.
I open the door to the coffee shop and let Grace go in first. The smell of coffee hits me as do the sounds of orders being placed and called out. There are a few people in line so Grace and I step up behind the last person. A few people in the shop watch us with curiosity. I’m learning that Grace and her family are practically local celebrities due to their wealth and ties to the band Willow Creek. I’m used to people staring at us because of me, and I have to admit it’s nice to have the tables turned for a change.