“That’s funny. It seems crazy enough to have been all your idea. You never did things like this when we were kids, but wow. The money must have cooked your brain because seriously, first you send your butler to kidnap me, then you fly me across the country in your private jet, twice- and now you’re here?”
“Yes. I’m here.” That grin was back, splitting his handsome face. He leaned across the table, somehow too close and too far away. Close enough to make her breath hitch. Far enough away to make her wish he was close enough for her to feel the heat of his skin next to hers.
Even if she shouldn’t wish things like that.
“And yes, it’s crazy,” he went on. “The album is proof, photographic evidence, that we’ve spent almost our entire lives together, and managed not to kill each other. We grew up. We changed over a whole lifetime. We had a lot of firsts together. Got into a lot of scrapes. Had some pretty wild adventures. And we still didn’t kill each other. It worked. We worked.”
His hand rested on the table and she had to resist the urge to curl her fingers around his stronger, blunter ones. Just when she was getting choked up, the tears stinging her eyes big time, he went and continued.
“I’ve loved you for a long time now. As more than just my best friend. The thing is, I’m pretty sure that you did too. And it still worked. We loved each other. We just didn’t say it out loud. It worked. Just as we were. It can still work. Please, Syd.” He implored her with his shining eyes and her stomach cramped. “We can go slow. We just both have to try. It will work, Syd. You and me. And if it doesn’t, and we gave it an honest shot, then maybe we can both finally move on. Because neither of us is moving on with how we left things. I didn’t. You didn’t. It’s been ten years. I don’t want to spend another ten years like that, and I know you don’t either. Working all the time. Doing anything we can to not think about the one thing that we want most and can’t have. Denying it doesn’t make any sense.”
Sydney could honestly say she was struck speechless. All of this- her mom- his mom- him. They’d put so much time and thought into getting her there. So that she and Jesse could have one last chance. She never would have reached out on her own, no matter how badly she wanted to, but she was there now. There with him.
And he was looking at her with those soft eyes, a sheen of emotion sparkling in their depths, looking at her like she was his entire world.
“I- I don’t know if adding the physical element will work. I mean, we never did that.”
“We kind of did,” he protested, his lips turning up again.
God, even if his grin was a little dorky, it was sexy as hell, and she’d do anything to see it. Because it was his. Jesse. Her best friend and honestly, the man of her dreams.
“Jesse… I don’t… seriously- I don’t know if it would work.”
She wanted it to work. She wanted it to work so damn badly. She’d missed him. Not just for the past ten years, but over the past month. It was torture, waking up, every single day without him. Leaving him behind again had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. She knew, right down to her soul, that if she ever got another chance, she knew she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. She’d man up, grow a set of balls, and stop running. She’d said the exact opposite- to her mom and to herself- a thousand times, but the hard truth was that she loved Jesse. She’d always loved him, and she always would. Maybe it was better to take a chance on being miserable with him than it was to take a chance on being miserable alone.
His eyes narrowed and she nearly gasped at how they darkened, how he didn’t bother to shield her from the hunger in their depths. And then he winked, and she was just… done. His smile changed and her stomach cramped at the devious intent behind it.
“There’s only one way to find out.”
CHAPTER 19
Jesse
“Get the key in there. Hurry up. God, why isn’t it working?”
Jesse clenched his jaw to stifle a laugh and finally got the stupid plastic card inserted into the lock of the hotel suite so that the green light flashed. Green means go, and they were in.
The cab ride to his hotel lasted for fifteen minutes. Which was fifteen minutes too long for both of them.
He turned the handle and they nearly fell into the room. Sydney twined her arms around his neck and hungrily tugged his face down to hers. His entire body woke up fast when she nearly broke his neck in her haste to drag his face to hers. The door slammed shut behind them and he wrapped his arms around her waist, slamming her up against the wall as he covered her lips in a heated kiss.