“I didn’t mention it because I didn’t know I wasn’t going to move until I got on the plane.”
Brynn shook her head. “What do you mean you didn’t know? You moved across the country; you must have had some idea.”
“Nope.”
“That’s ridiculous. Who changes three time zones without a plan?”
He gave the smallest of smiles. “You and your plans.”
She took a deep breath. “So you moved because we slept together?”
Will went very still, his eyes dark and pleading. “I moved because I couldn’t stand the thought of watching you with other guys. Not after we’d been together. I moved because I didn’t want to be your dirty little secret, Brynn. I still don’t.”
Brynn froze. “You mean…you want…”
“Yeah,” he said with a harsh laugh. “I want. I want to hold your hand, and take you to the movies, and be with you when we go to your parents for dinner, and I want you to call me when you have a flat tire.”
“I did call you when I had a flat tire.” It felt like the safest thing to say at the moment.
“You think that wasn’t planned?”
She snorted. “How could you plan a flat tire?”
He just looked at her and her jaw dropped.
“You gave me a flat tire?”
Will didn’t bother looking the slightest bit guilty. “I would have done anything to get you to notice me.”
Her world tilted slightly at the implications of that. “Notice you how?”
“You know.”
She did know. But still her brain rejected it. “You…That’s why you moved next door? That’s the game you were playing?”
“It was never a game, Princess. Not to me.”
“So you…you’ve wanted us…me…you…to be like, a thing?”
He gave a curt nod.
Brynn’s fingers dropped again to the mark on her hip. “One step closer to what, Will? What does it mean?”
His hands were on her shoulders again, only this time he pressed he
r into the wall, his breath coming harsh and fast as he lifted her to her toes, shaking her. “Not one step closer to what, Brynn. One step closer to who. One step closer to me. After all these years, you finally came to me. Finally took a step in the right direction. And I didn’t want you to forget it.”
Brynn’s vision went fuzzy and her mouth went dry. “All these years…?”
He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, the emotion was so raw that she almost gasped.
No.
She put a hand up to stop him. “Will.”
He grasped her fingers, refusing to be silenced. “I’ve loved you every day. Every single Goddamn day since you first flicked your hair at me on the football field in that tiny cheerleading skirt.”
Brynn’s entire body trembled even as her brain shied away from his words.