Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute(51)

“It’ll be fun,” I repeat carefully. “But not as fun as…?”

He huffs out a breath like a frustrated horse.

“Come on. I showed you mine; now show me yours.”

“God, Celine,” he laughs, and flops back onto the bed, then sits up again. Takes his glasses off, then puts them on again. Rubs his jaw, then mutters, “Sometimes I think I’d like to write a book or two?”

A little chain reaction goes off in my brain and a memory unlocks. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah! You wanted to be an author.”

He groans and squeezes his eyes shut. “When I was ten!”

“But not anymore?”

“It’s…not that easy.”

“Why not?”

Brad bites his lip. I really wish he’d stop doing that; it’s deeply inconsiderate to me, a person who can see him and is tragically vulnerable to the sight of an excellent mouth.

“Because,” he says, and stands up abruptly. “Just…look at this.” He fetches his laptop from the desk and sits beside me again, cracking it open. His screensaver is John Boyega being criminally hot in Star Wars. Then he opens a series of folders and I’m faced with a page full of Word files. The labels start small: Draft 1. Draft 4. Draft 9. Before long, letters are introduced. Roman numerals. Bradley has written a lot of drafts.

“I can’t finish anything,” he announces, then slaps the laptop shut and puts it on his bedside table.

I blink. “Oh my God.”

“I know!” He is disgusted with himself. “I keep trying, but—”

“No, Brad, that’s what I’m saying. How many times have you tried to write this book?”

He glares at me like I just trod on his already-broken toe. “About a thousand, thank you, Celine.”

“And you’re still going?”

“I realize it’s pointless, but you know what they say about the definition of insanity.”

“Are you allowed to say things like that?”

“Hang on, let me consult with the mentally ill council.” Brad pauses. “Yes.”

“You want to know what I think?”

“Unfortunately,” he sighs, “I do.”

“I think you’ve got this all wrong. You think it’s a bad thing that you’ve written so much. I don’t.”

Brad seems deeply skeptical—but, because he is sweet down to the bone, he props his elbows on his knees, props his chin on his hands, and listens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You only do something this much if you love it. And if you love it, you should go for it. Plus, I have no idea what it takes to write a book”—actually, I think I’d die of boredom—“but I’m pretty sure you have to be exactly this committed. You know, to finish it.”

Brad’s eyes bug out. “But, Celine. Here is the point you are missing. I. HAVEN’T. FINISHED IT!”

My laughter spills out without permission. “Yes, Bradley, and here is the point you’re missing: ONE. DAY. YOU. WILL.”

That brings him up short. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “You…you don’t know that.”

“You don’t know that,” I counter. “I’m positive. You’re Brad Fucking Graeme. I’d bet on you any day.”

His smile is the softest, sweetest thing, like a spilled bottle of relief. “God, Celine. You’re so lovely.”

I blink. “What.”

“Do you know what you just said to me? Or were you, like, in an emotional fugue state and you’re going to snap out of it and forget the entire thing?” He pats my knee reassuringly. “That’s okay. I’ll remember.”

Now that he mentions it, everything I just said was hideously mushy. And sentimental. And possibly revealed certain things about my…my unreasonable fondness for certain aspects of his character. Okay, fine, my unreasonable fondness for literally everything about him.

“Um,” I croak. “Never mind. Pretend I never said anything. You’re too tall and you get on my nerves, how’s that?”

Apparently, it’s hilarious, because Brad bursts out laughing. “You are so repressed.” He sounds like a warm little brook hidden partway through a hike on a summer’s day, an unexpected delight. And I don’t think I’m repressed at all because I look at him and my heart does a very deliberate jump and I know exactly how I feel.

But why choose to dwell on that when it won’t go anywhere? What am I going to do, put my hands on his cheeks and kiss his annoying face? Of course I’m not. You have to be sensible about feelings like this, or they’ll run away with you. Liking someone this much is a dangerous game because what do you do when they’re gone?

I don’t know what to do with myself, so I pull a pillow out from behind his back and whack him with it.

“Hey!” He laughs harder, tugs it out of my grip, and whacks me back.

“Ow!” I yelp.

His amusement is replaced, instantly, by concern. “Shit, are you—”

Which gives me enough time to grab another pillow.

“Ah! Stop.” Brad wraps burning fingers around my wrist and says sternly, “Violence is not the answer.”

“You just whacked me!”

“That,” he says loftily, “was self-defense.”