Finding Cinderella (Hopeless #2.5)(5)

Her hands move from my shoulders and slowly make their way up to my neck. She tilts her head until her mouth is flush against my ear. “I love you more,” she whispers. I can feel the smile on her lips and I wonder if it matches the smile on my face. I don’t know why I’m suddenly enjoying this so much, but I am.

“You’re so beautiful,” I whisper, moving my lips closer to her mouth. “So damn beautiful. And every single one of those guys who somehow passed this up is a complete fool.”

She closes the gap between our lips and I kiss her, but this time the kiss seems so much more intimate. For a brief moment, I actually feel like I really do love all those things about her and she really does love all those things about me. We’re kissing and touching and pulling the rest of our clothes off in such a hurry, it feels as if we’re on a timer.

I guess we technically are.

I pull my wallet out of the pocket of my jeans and grab a condom, then ease myself back against her.

“You can change your mind,” I whisper, hoping to hell she doesn’t.

“So can you,” she says.

I laugh.

She laughs.

Then we both shut the hell up and spend the rest of the hour proving exactly how much we love each other.

I’m on my knees now, quietly gathering our clothes. After I slip my shirt over my head, I pull her up and help her with her own shirt. I stand up and pull on my jeans, then help her to her feet. I rest my chin on top of her head and pull her against me, recognizing the perfect fit.

“I could turn on the light before you leave,” I say. “Aren’t you a little curious to see the face of the guy you’re madly in love with?”

She shakes her head against my chest with her laugh. “It’ll ruin everything,” she says. Her words are muffled by my shirt, so she lifts her head away from my chest and tilts her face up to mine. “Let’s not ruin it. Once we find out who each other is, we’ll find something we don’t like. Maybe lots of things we don’t like. Right now it’s perfect. We can always have this perfect memory of that one time we loved somebody.”

I kiss her again, but it doesn’t last long because the bell rings. She doesn’t release her hold from around my waist. She just presses her head against my chest again and squeezes me tighter. “I need to go,” she says.

I close my eyes and nod. “I know.”

I’m surprised by just how much I don’t want her to go, knowing I’ll never see her again. I almost beg her to stay, but I also know she’s right. It only feels perfect because we’re pretending it’s perfect.

She begins to pull away from me, so I lift my hands to her cheeks one last time. “I love you, babe. Wait for me after school, okay? In our usual spot.”

“You know I’ll be there,” she says. “And I love you, too.” She stands on her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine; hard and desperate and sad. She pulls away and makes her way to the door. As soon as she begins to open it, I walk swiftly to her and push the door shut with my hand. I press my chest against her back and I lower my mouth to her ear.

“I wish it could be real,” I whisper. I put my hand on the doorknob and open it, then turn my head when she slips out the door.

I sigh and run my hands through my hair. I think I need a few minutes before I can leave this room. I’m not sure I want to forget the way she smells just yet. In fact, I stand here in the dark and try my hardest to commit every single thing about her to my memory, since that’s the only place I’ll ever see her again.

Chapter One

One year later

“Oh, my God!” I say, frustrated. “Lighten up.” I crank the car just as Val climbs inside and slams her door in a huff, then pushes herself back against the seat.

As soon as she’s inside the car, the overwhelming amount of perfume she has on begins to suffocate me. I crack the window, but just enough that she won’t think I’m insulting her. She knows how much perfume bothers me, especially when chicks smell like they bathe in it, but she never seems to care what I think, because she continues to douse it on by the gallon.

“You’re so immature, Daniel,” she mutters. She flips the visor down and pulls her lipstick from her purse, then begins to reapply it. “I’m beginning to wonder if you’ll ever change.”

Change?

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

“Why would I change?” I ask, cocking my head out of curiosity.

She sighs and drops her lipstick back into her purse, smacks her lips together, then turns toward me. “So you’re telling me you’re happy with the way you act?”

What?

With the way I act? Is she really commenting on the way I act? The same girl I’ve seen curse at waitresses for something as simple as too much ice in her glass is seriously commenting on the way I act?

I’ve been seeing her off and on for months now and I haven’t had a single clue that she was hoping I would eventually change. Hoping I’d become someone I’m not.

Come to think of it . . . I keep getting back together with her, thinking she’ll be the one to change. To be nice for once. In reality, people are who they are and they’ll never really change. So why the hell are Val and I even wasting our time on this exhausting relationship if we don’t even really like who each other is?