I wink, and she smiles.
“Why did I wait this long?”
“Because you are stubborn.”
She rolls her eyes at me and sighs. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special, huh?”
“And smart,” I add. “Too smart for your own good. You overthink everything. For once, why don’t you do something without thinking about it.”
“I just made out with you in the library,” she counters. “I’d say that qualifies as not thinking things through. I could get into a lot of trouble if one of the librarians finds us.”
“There you go again,” I tell her, clutching her face in my hand. “Don’t think, just feel. Live in the moment with me.” And then I brush my lips against her, forcing her eyes closed and a soft whimper escapes her lips. Planting soft kisses along her mouth and jaw, I take my time and mutter things to her between breaths. I whisper that she’s beautiful, kind, smart, strong, and everything that makes up Ella. My Ella. My dream girl. My masked beauty.
It’s not until I feel something wet on my cheek that I stop kissing her. When I look at Ella, a few tears streak her cheeks. She turns her head to the side and wipes them away with the back of her hand.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I stare into her bright blue eyes and force her to maintain my gaze. “Talk to me.”
“Nothing,” she chokes out, sucking down her tears. “This is perfect. You are perfect. I can’t help but think this situation is temporary, and I don’t want to lose you, Shawn.”
“What would make you think that? I’m here because I like you, Ella, and not because of something you have to offer me. You’re not some fling or a booty call for me. I want you to be mine.”
“As in your girlfriend?”
“What else is there? Of course, my girlfriend.”
She sniffs and blinks the last few tears away. “But what about the NFL and everything you have going on? I don’t want to get in the way.”
“Stop thinking, my beautiful girl,” I say, stroking her cheek with my fingers. “Just let things happen, okay?”
Ella nods. “Okay, I will try, but I can’t promise my brain will turn off.”
“And I’ll be here every day to remind you to stop worrying so much. I’m here, living in this moment with you. I’m not letting you go again, Ella. Please believe me when I say that because I mean every word. I am not going to leave you.”
“People always leave. It’s just human nature,” she mutters.
“No, it’s just bad luck. Your parents didn’t leave you by choice, remember that. My dad did. There’s a difference. I care about you too much to break your heart. So, as I said, let’s take this one day at a time and let things happen on their own.”
She flashes a closed mouth smile. We stand there for a few seconds in complete silence, holding onto one another, until she says, “True or false? You knew I was the girl from the party since the day we met.”
“I had my suspicions. I never told you that I had a picture of you from the party on my cell phone. All through our first tutoring session, I kept checking my phone to see if you looked like the picture. You were a dead ringer, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure because a large portion of the masked had covered your face, making it harder to tell.”
“Why didn’t you force it out of me?”
“Because, once I’d gotten to know you, I couldn’t see you hanging out at a frat party on a Saturday night.”
She frowns. “And why is that? Am I not cool enough for your friends?”
“No, of course not. The kind of girls who come to our parties are the ones who are there to get drunk and hook up. You’re not that kind of girl, and that’s a good thing.”
“I guess I need to be more spontaneous,” she says. “The masquerade party was the first party I’d gone to in almost four years of going to Strick U.”
“We can fix that, you know. Make up for lost times before you graduate.”
“How do you expect me to do that?”
“Come to the Spring Formal with me?”
She cocks an eyebrow at me, confused. “Spring Formal for the school? I didn’t know we had dances.”