The Roommate Agreement(47)
I glared at him and folded my arms across my chest. “Shut up.”
He grinned.
“You wanted to talk to me, so talk to me. And, for the record, I understand how badly you want to have sex with me.”
“If only,” he muttered. “All right. Listen to me for once, okay?”
I nodded once.
“I spoke to Georgia today—”
“Oh, good, there’s nothing like being the subject of conversation between your best friend and a total stranger.”
“You literally just said you’d shut up.”
“You should have known better than to believe me.”
Jay leaned over and pressed one finger against my lips. “Shut up and let me talk.”
“What if I don’t?” I mumbled against his finger.
He brought his nose just inches from me. “Then I’ll kiss you until you can’t talk anymore.”
That seemed like a fair warning.
I batted his hand away. “Fine. Get on with it.”
“I spoke to her briefly about this situation. And no, I didn’t go into details, and since you don’t go to the gym, you’re not likely to meet her.”
I pursed my lips.
His eyes glinted in the light. “She made me realize that best friends or not, there’s a big conversation that we need to have. It doesn’t matter what the outcome is, but it needs to happen.”
“Way to scare a girl.”
“Shush!” Jay laughed, reaching out and tugging a lock of my hair. “For fuck’s sake, Shelby. Just shut up for a second!”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “Can you get to the point, though? I’m squirrelly today.”
“Just today?”
“Shut it.”
He rubbed his hand over his face, chuckling. “All right.” He dropped his hand and met my eyes. “I’m going to be serious now. You think you can manage that for a couple minutes?”
“This is emotional, isn’t it? Jesus, no, Jay—you know this makes me speak without thinking. What are you—”
He cut me off with a swift kiss, his hand curling around the back of my neck.
Okay.
So that worked.
He pulled back, his eyes boring into mine, but he never let go of me. “No matter what I’m about to tell you, remember this: you’re my best friend. I don’t want you to be anything but honest with me, okay? You won’t hurt my feelings. You won’t change anything. Keeping you in my life as my best friend is more important than anything. You understand?”
My heart was beating double-time. He’d already bypassed my comfort level when it came to emotional discussions. He knew it as well as I did because he kept his eyes on mine as I tried to control my breathing.
“Okay,” I whispered.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – SHELBY
No Loud Noises After Nine P.M.
It wasn’t okay.
I wasn’t okay.
Emotional stuff was something I’d always struggled with, and that was part of the reason I’d never tried to tell Jay how I felt.
I could put it on paper. I could fictionalize love and romance and crushes and everything else that came from having a passion for penning romance novels.
I just wasn’t very good at verbalizing it.
It was why I’d never had a relationship last past six months in my life.
But now—this was Jay. He knew I didn’t do this. He knew it made me uncomfortable, but he’d asked me to listen. So I’d listen.
Jay reached over and pushed some of my hair from my eyes. I dropped my gaze, and I heard his breathy chuckle.
“At least you’re listening,” he said softly. “Shelbs, I have feelings for you.”
I jerked my gaze back up to him. “What?”
He took a deep breath in. “I have feelings for you. Beyond friendship.”
What. Was. Happening?
“Okay,” I breathed.
He searched my face for a moment before he continued. “They’re relatively new. Since I moved in, actually, and I wasn’t going to act on them. I had no plans to change our friendship. You’re the most important person in the world to me, Shelby. Losing your friendship would hurt me more than anything else.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded my agreement as I dropped my gaze again. That was why I hadn’t told him, wasn’t it?
The idea of losing him was too much to bear.
It would kill me.
“But I have to tell you how I feel. If I don’t, it’s gonna eat me up inside. Even if you tell me I’m crazy—I have to be honest.”
Okay. Now my heart was going crazy.
“I have real feelings for you. I want more than friendship with you. I want to take you on a date. I want to be more than your best friend.”
Slowly, I met his gaze. Gone was the confident, playful, sometimes-cocky man I called my best friend. He’d stripped himself bare, and I could see nothing but honesty shining back from his stupidly green eyes.
He’d picked up his heart, put it on a silver platter, and handed it to me.
But I couldn’t speak. My own heart was wedged firmly in my throat. I couldn’t form the words I wanted to say, because there was only one thing I really needed to know.