The American Roommate Experiment (Spanish Love Deception #2)(118)

I frowned, feeling there was more. Something else.

She pulled out her phone from the back of her jeans. Unlocked it and looked for something. “Here,” she said showing the screen to me.

It was a photo. A selfie of me and Taco on a beach. An old one. From way before the accident and before we’d ever met. I—

“Here,” she repeated. “I’ve been keeping this on my phone ever since you posted it on your Instagram.” The pace of her breathing increased, the air leaving her mouth in big gulps. “I… sort of followed you, Lucas, without actually following you. I checked for new posts every day, went to bed thinking of them, of you, of your face, of Taco, too.”

My own chest mimicked hers, oxygen suddenly struggling to enter and exit my lungs.

“For months,” she added. “Then, you didn’t come to Lina and Aaron’s wedding, and I was heartbroken over missing the chance to meet you in person. Devastated. But I told myself I was being stupid, that it was just a silly online crush.” She shook her head. “But I was fooling myself. I… never stopped thinking of you, Lucas.”

My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. I just… What was there to say? I was trying to process everything she was telling me. How fucking good it made me feel. How my chest and head were growing a couple sizes too big.

“Do you think I’m a weirdo? A stalker?” Rosie whispered. “Because if you think that of me now, you have to tell me before I—”

“No,” I finally rushed to say. “No. God, no.” I clasped her cheeks, my thumbs caressing them. “I’m flattered, Rosie. I’m… I’d never think you’re weird. I love that you liked what you saw. I love that you wanted me.” I kissed her forehead. “If anything, I’m flattered, preciosa.”

“Okay,” she murmured. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

“I wasn’t lying, Rosie.” I tilted her head back with my hands, making sure she was looking at me. “Everything I said on that rooftop about us, if we’d met at the wedding, was true. Do you understand?”

Her gaze filled with something. Something that made me short of breath. Something that resembled the way she had looked at me that night, seconds before asking me to kiss her.

“Lucas,” she said, staring into my eyes. “I’m glad you say that. Because I…” Her eyelids fluttered closed very briefly, then opened again. “This is my grand gesture.”

My heart thrummed recklessly in my rib cage.

“I’ve told myself a hundred times that I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t not do it,” she said, looking at me with a million different things dancing in her beautiful eyes. “Stay with me, Lucas. Be with me. I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time. I know that you can’t stay in the country without a visa, that you squeezed that time to the last second. So, I’ll come with you. I’ll get myself a ticket right now, I—” She shook her head. “I haven’t packed or have anything with me right now but that doesn’t matter. I’ll buy what I need in Spain. You are all I need, Lucas. I want you. I want to go on dates that are not experimental. I want to kiss you under the rain a hundred times more. I want to dance with you in the kitchen every morning. I want to bring you a box of Cronuts when I want to say thank you. And not because we’re friends.”

My heart had halted in my chest.

My lungs stopped functioning and no air got in or out.

My hands fell to my sides.

And I… I didn’t know how I was still standing.

Then, Rosie went for the final blow. “But because we’re more. Because we’re everything. And we can do that here, or in Spain.”

I blinked, everything inside of me breaking.

Shattering with a big loud bang.

Rosie must have felt it, too, because her face fell. She took a step back.

“Rosie,” I somehow rasped, the word barely coming out. I reached for her face, but she shook her head. Because she knew; I didn’t need to tell her. She could read me. “You can’t leave your life behind and follow me. I—”

She took another step back, merely a few inches this time, but it was enough for my blood to drain from my face.

I needed to hold her. I… just couldn’t bear seeing her hurt and knowing I was the one responsible.

“Rosie, preciosa,” I reached for her again. But she shook her head. Something lodged in my chest, cutting the air. “Rosie… I…”

I couldn’t make the words form, climb to my mouth, and leave my lips. Everything in me stuttered, watching this beautiful woman be shredded to pieces. By me.

By what I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud. To give her.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. But it wasn’t. “It’s okay. That was very selfish of me, reckless. I put you in a hard spot.” Her throat bobbed. “I knew the last thing you needed right now was this. You said so yourself, that you were not in the market for a relationship, right? That you didn’t date. I just thought… I thought maybe that had… changed. Because of me.”

“Rosie,” I said, her name again, and for the first time, it felt wrong rolling off my tongue, like I had no right to utter those five letters together anymore. Like I’d lost that the moment I’d hesitated. “I…” Want to. There’s nothing I want more than you, I wanted to tell her. “I can’t.”