Page 97 of For the Cameras

The look on his face was beautiful. He calmed down again. “And you are aware I’m definitely going to make you do at least some shots with me, later tonight?”

I laughed. “What would an overnight trip be without some late-night shots?”

Chase buried his face at the side of my neck, just under my hair. I breathed in deep, inhaling his scent.

And everything hit me all at once.

I was showing up to this cookout party with someone whowantedto be mine, as much as I wanted to be his.

I had always believed in love. Wanted it.

But I’d never actually known if it was something that would ever be available to a person as introverted as me.

Now, it didn’t just feel possible—it felt as inevitable as everything had, with Chase.

I didn’t know if he felt that yet, too. If he was ready to let himself fall that hard for me. But no matter how long it took, I wanted to be with him. I was still falling for him, more and more every day.

Chase got out of the passenger side first, stretching in the midday sun right as Emmett emerged from the big, glass front doors of his house.

“Chase!” I heard him call out. “You made it. Who’d you drive up with?”

Chase glanced back toward where I was sitting in the car.

“I drove in with my boyfriend,” he said, smiling at Emmett.

Emmett took a few steps closer, looking through the car window and recognizing me. I stepped out of the driver’s side, slamming the car door shut.

“Hey, Emmett,” I said. “Nice place you’ve got, here.”

Emmett looked at me and then at him again. “Wait. You two are an item?”

Excitement stirred inside me. How long had I been waiting to be able to say that? To actually be an “item” with someone as incredible as Chase felt like something out of my wildest dreams.

“Guilty as charged,” I said.

“Oh, my colleague is going to kill me,” Emmett said, smiling and putting a palm to his face.

“What?” Chase asked.

“I knew it,” I said. “That guy you brought to the dinner had a thing for Chase, didn’t he? I swore he was going to ask for his number at the end of the night.”

Emmett chuckled. “No. He just asked me if you two were together, and I told him you weren’t. He was convinced. He’ll probably be here at the party tonight, so get ready to witness him chewing my head off.”

I felt a familiar heat reaching up to my cheeks.

There was a time when I would have hated the idea that anyone was talking about me without me knowing about it. All throughout my childhood, when people were speaking about me behind my back, it always led to bad things.

But the instinct felt different now.

No one was talking behind my back in a bad way. And I liked the feeling of people talking about me and Chase. Being able to handle even the smallest social situations that used to send me into overthinking-mode was a massive step in the right direction.

I didn’t know if I’d ever feel “normal.”

I wasn’t even sure it was a thing that existed at all, or that I’d even want, anymore.

I just wanted to feel likemyself. Something that had seemed like a thorn in my side for most of my life now really did feel like a superpower.

“Well, I’m glad he was right,” I told Emmett. “I feel like the luckiest man in the world dating Chase.”