Page 94 of For the Cameras

I moved to one side and Adam squeezed my hand again in his. “But I’m not boyfriend material,” I said. “I’m telling you.”

“What do you even mean by that?”

“I already told you. I mean that I’m too much,” I blurted out, emotion breaking through suddenly, like a dam had burst in me. I realized I was a little shaky, and I gripped his hand harder so he wouldn’t notice. “I’ve been told that too many times.”

“So be too much,” Adam told me, turning to face me. “I want it.”

“You couldn’t want it.”

He tilted his head to one side. “I really do.”

He moved in, catching my lips in a kiss as I felt like every cell in my body was exploding all at once.

“Why are you so nice to me?” I whispered against his lips as he moved to one side, pressing more kisses to the side of my jaw. It was something I’d asked him before, and I’d never been able to understand.

“Because you’re so fucking worth it,” he said. “And I really want to be with you. Only you.”

I felt like I’d just plunged toward the ground on a roller coaster.

Those words.

Only you.

The type of thing that would have sent me running for the hills if any other guy had said it for years of my life.

The type of exclusive commitment that usually provoked revulsion in me.

But instead, I felt like the heavy weight that had been on me for every single one of the last four years was strangely lifted. Like that anvil was gone, but it had been there for so long that I’d forgotten what life could even feel like without it.

“Chase,” Adam murmured against me. “You can just break up with me if you don’t like it. You never have to do anything you don’t want to do. But you have to feel it, too. Don’t you? What I feel, between us?”

He leaned back, looking in my eyes with a resolute purpose.

“I feel it,” I whispered.

“When I’m with you, I feel like I belong,” Adam said. “I’ve never really felt it before. Even the first day I met you, when you were helping me feel better about being on camera… you made me feel like I belonged.”

“You are too fucking nice.”

“And maybe what I really want istoo much,” he said. “Maybe that’s what I need. Maybe you could never be too much for me, because as far as I can tell, you’re pretty close to perfect for me.”

I tackled him back onto the bed until I was leaning over him, covering his face with kisses. “You are going to regret saying that. I am so far from perfect.”

He hummed. “I want to know what life could be like with you.Everythingis more fun with you. Even things I used to hate.”

I would never have let myself admit it if Adam hadn’t said it first. The mountain of fear inside me that had built up over a lifetime, knowing that I could fall so hard for someone and have them shoo me like a fly.

I was still terrified.

My heart still felt like a goddamn drum going haywire inside me.

But for the first time in so long, I didn’t want to put up a barrier between myself and Adam. I wanted to let him right in.

Knowing that I might get hurt—but that I also might have unknowingly stumbled on the best thing I’d ever found in my life.

He was worth it, too.

I shook my head as I sat up again, feeling like I was in some fevered, summer daydream.