Page 379 of His Hungry Wolf
“You figured it would be less of a hassle, huh?”
“Yeah.”
I took a moment from my spiral into villainy to process what he said.
“Oh. That’s actually really nice of you. Thank you. But you know this isn’t going to protect you from what I’m going to do to you tomorrow, right?”
“I never thought it would,” Titus said with a smile before finding a beautiful spot under the trees and sitting down.
Titus and I chatted and laughed for the rest of the evening. When it got dark enough to see the stars, I pointed out my homework.
“I have to ask you this, Lou. When you decided on astronomy as a major, you knew that celebrities weren’t the stars you would be studying, right?”
“Oh, ha ha.”
“I’m just checking because I’m sure you still have time to switch majors to something useful.”
“Astronomy is useful! How do you think cell phones work?”
Titus looked at me confused. “By pressing the little button on the side. Obviously.”
I smiled. “There’s a little more to it than that. The next time we’re away from city lights, I’ll give you a better explanation.”
“I look forward to it,” Titus said looking me in the eyes.
I wasn’t sure what was different about the way he looked at me tonight, but staring back at him, I felt something. It was harder to breathe. With the light creating a halo around his large curls, my heart thumped. I wondered if I wanted to kiss him.
This would have been the perfect time to tell him about Sey and my engagement. He deserved to know. I had already gone long enough without telling him. But when I opened my mouth, I said,
“You know I’m gonna crush you in tomorrow’s game night, right?”
“We’ll see,” he replied with his usual big smile… his usual beautiful, heart-melting smile.
Holy crap! I wanted to kiss him. What the F…? I popped up shaken.
“I should go!”
“Something the matter?” he asked looking at me concerned.
“No. I just need to go. It’s getting late,” I told him before he walked me to my dorm and I shook his hand wishing him a fair, sea-worthy night.
I didn’t know what I was saying. I was panicking. It felt like he wanted to kiss me goodnight… and I would have let him.
This is Titus I’m talking about. My best friend. The one person I couldn’t take Lou’ing things up with. The one person I couldn’t stand to lose.
“What?” Quin asked as I stared at him with my back pressed against our living room door.
“How did you know that Cage was the one?”
“I don’t know. I just knew… after a little help from someone smarter than me.”
“Okay. So, you’re way smarter than me. You’re way smarter than everyone,” I told him sitting next to him at the dinner table and pushing everything in front of him aside.
Quin looked panicked for a second and then gave into the moment. “What’s going on?”
“There’s something I haven’t told you.”
“That you’re in love with Titus?”