Page 53 of The Wreckage of Us

I took the phone from him and laid it down. Seconds later, my phone dinged.

Ian:Haze?

Hazel:Yes?

Ian:I hope you had a good birthday.

Hazel:The best one yet.

Ian:I have a secret to tell you.

Hazel:What is it?

Ian:I stole the cake from the grocery store.

I burst out laughing and covered my mouth to shield my chuckles as I turned to face Ian. Jeez, how corny were we? Texting while we were right beside each other.

“You didn’t steal it!” I whisper-shouted.

“Okay, no. I did think about it, but there wasn’t a good pasta sauce display going on.”

“You’re a dork.”

“You’re beautiful.”

What?

My eyes fell to his lips to make sure those words had escaped him. My pulse heightened as I became unable to think straight. What had he said? And he’d said it to me? No way. I’d been called a lot of things in my life, butbeautifulhadn’t ever been one of them. I had to have imagined it. There was no way Ian would’ve ever said those words and directed them toward me.

“I hate myself, you know,” he whispered, “for the way I treated you when we first met. I was a complete dick, and you didn’t deserve that, Haze. I judged you without knowing you, and that was a shitty thing to do.”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing for that. We both came in with our thoughts on one another.”

“Yeah, but you only responded to my idiotic ways. You didn’t come in swinging the way I did, and for that, I’m sorry. I’m going to keep apologizing, too, no matter what. So just let it happen.”

As we lay in bed together, he moved in close, keeping me warm and keeping my heart racing. In the past few nights, I’d felt his hardness pressed against my behind when we’d cuddled, and I was beginning to fully understand why women seemed addicted to finding their way into Ian’s pants. A pool of heat flooded my center, and flutters attacked my stomach. I tried my best to not think about it as his warm skin pressed against mine.

“Ian?”

He yawned. “Yeah?”

“You’re my new favorite musician.”

He snickered. “I bet you say that to all the boys who throw you parties, build you she-sheds, and clean shit out of your boots.”

I laughed.

“I like that,” he whispered. “Your laugh is my new favorite sound.”

Butterflies, butterflies, oh, the butterflies.

I turned toward him and looked into his brown eyes. Then I looked down to his lips. His lips that had small breaths falling from them every few seconds. His lips that had a perfect Cupid’s bow and were flesh colored. His lips that looked so soft.

So very, very soft.

“Ian?” I said once more.

“Yeah?”