: Chapter 17

Vincent doesn’t get frustrated. He doesn’t get angry or distant or weird. Even if he finds my request to talk a total mood killer, the measured step he takes back from me isn’t passive-aggressive or cruel. It’s patient. It gives me the space I need to march into the middle of his room and pace a few laps, sucking in deep breaths of cool air and trying to clear my head before I turn to face him again.

He leans against his desk and nods, giving me the floor.

“So.” I clear my throat. “I ran. On Monday.”

“I know. I was there.”

I huff and shoot him a warning look.

“I have stage fright, I guess. Not that I was handling everything great before that—”

“I was about to say,” he quips with a smile that’s more kind than it is teasing. “Look, I don’t blame you for leaving. I didn’t know the guys were going to come spy on me. My friends are idiots. I apologize on their behalf.”

“Don’t apologize yet,” I snap. “Can I at least make my points first?”

Vincent holds his arms wide open. “Apology rescinded. Give me your worst.”

I take a deep breath and fold my arms over my chest to steady myself.

“I don’t like that your friends knew where to find us. And I know I can’t ask you not to talk to them about this kind of stuff, because obviously I’ve told Harper and Nina everything—of course I did. And I’d be a hypocrite to be mad at you, but the fact that they came into Starbucks and sat there and watched us and probably took pictures to send to some sort of team group chat made me feel so—so—” I let out a strangled groan. “So attacked. Like, when girls talk about toxic masculinity and guys being gross with each other? It’s that. That feeling of being made fun of, being watched and harassed.”

The whole time I’m speaking, Vincent’s smile falls.

When I’m done, he swallows hard and says, “I’m sorry, Kendall. It wasn’t my intention—it wasn’t our intention. I promise. But intention doesn’t matter. I hurt you. And I’m sorry.”

I can tell this one’s not on behalf of his team. This apology is his. I bite back the impulse to say it’s okay, because it’s not. But I do nod—just so he knows that his apology is acknowledged.

“I also ran because I was . . . confused.”

“About what? Let’s talk it out.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Of course. I don’t want you to be confused about anything.”

It’s so not what I expected—and it’s so validating to be treated like my overactive emotions aren’t irrational or an annoyance.

“I told you already that I’m not good at this game,” I begin.

Vincent opens his mouth.

“I know.” I cut him off. “I know you said it’s not a game. But that’s the only way I can describe what it feels like. And it feels like I missed something, or nobody gave me the rule book, and maybe I’m just not very smart, but—”

“You’re smart,” Vincent interrupts sharply. “Ask me something. Anything.”

I chew on my lip and search his face for any hint of humor. There’s none. He’s dead serious.

“When you left the note at the library,” I begin, my voice wobbling just a little, “was that code for, like, wanting to go on a coffee date? Or hook up? Or was it really just for tutoring? Or—I don’t know. I didn’t want to read too much into it.”

I wring my hands, willing my heartbeat to calm the fuck down and stop acting like I’m standing on the edge of a roof twenty stories up from a busy street. So overdramatic.

Vincent frowns. “Which note are we talking about?”

“The note.”

“No, I mean—the first one or the second one?”

It’s my turn to frown. “Wait. What?”

Vincent stares at me for a moment like he can’t tell if I’m joking or not, and then he does the last thing I expect. He laughs. I watch him, dumbstruck, as he sits down on the edge of his bed and scrubs his hands over his face. “Oh my God,” he moans, then he drops his hands into his lap. “I knew it.”

I feel like my brain is lagging.

“Knew what?” I ask.

Vincent shakes his head. “It’s my fault—it was a dumb idea. It was that first night, when I came in during your shift and we—” He tilts his head in silent acknowledgment of our make-out session. “The librarian was helping me check out the anthology you gave me, and I—” Vincent laughs again, like he’s embarrassed, and hides his face behind one hand. “I wrote you a little note and my phone number on a piece of paper. I put it in your book.”

“What book?” I ask, and then abruptly I remember The Mafia’s Princess. The book he caught me reading. The book I left on the circulation desk when we went upstairs. The book I never finished reading because I couldn’t look at the cover without thinking about how badly I’d fucked up with Vincent. “Stop. You’re kidding me.”

Vincent bites down on his lower lip and nods.

“Fuck!” I cry.

All this time—three miserable weeks—and I had his phone number in the book I couldn’t bring myself to finish. I had solid, tangible proof that Vincent Knight wanted me, and I passed it off to Nina and told her she could either read it or toss it in a donation bin.

I bury my face in my hands.

“I didn’t finish the book,” I groan into my palms. “Oh my God, I—I told Nina she could have it. Shit. She probably donated it.” Because if she’d found a note from Vincent Knight tucked in my romance novel, she never would’ve shut up about it.

“No wonder you were so pissed off at Starbucks.”

“Oh my God, I was furious. I thought you were purposefully sending mixed signals. You kiss me, and then you disappear, and then I don’t hear from you again until you need a tutor—like, what was I supposed to do with that?”

“I thought you ghosted me after the night we met. I never got a text from you, and I thought maybe you weren’t interested, but I had to know for sure. Asking for help with poetry was, like, my Hail Mary to see you again. And then you emailed me, and it was so stiff and formal, and I thought—”

“That I didn’t want to see you again,” I finish.

He nods. “And you thought I just wanted a tutor.”

It’s both satisfying and infuriating to finally clear this up.

One thing I’m definitely sure of: miscommunication truly is the worst trope.

“Well, we’re brilliant,” I announce.

Vincent laughs. It’s loud and loose and makes the knot in my chest come undone.

“I’m not very good at asking for what I want,” he admits, his cheeks and the tips of his ears tinged with pink as he picks at invisible lint on his duvet. I’ve never seen him so bashful. “If I’m advocating for someone else, it’s easy. I’m just being team captain. But if it’s just for me, I—I don’t know. I feel greedy.”

The idea that Vincent—confident, quick-witted, flirty, dirty-minded Vincent—doesn’t like advocating for himself doesn’t seem to fit. But the puzzle piece slots into place.

He’s never been good at asking for help, has he?

I think of the way he kissed me in the library, and his offer to let me practice on him. How sheepish he was when he asked me to be patient and let him try to lift me with one arm, for my own enjoyment. The way he teased me at Starbucks, the whole time thinking I’d just come for the money but hoping, quietly, that I wanted him the way he wanted me. He’s always left the door open for me. Even when I slam it shut in his face, he opens it up again.

But all this time, he’s been too afraid to ask me to come inside.

It’s enough to break my heart. It’s enough to make me want to clutch him tight and pepper kisses over every inch of his face, to apologize for being a coward—and to reprimand him for being a coward too.

“Well,” I say. “We’re just going to have to communicate better, aren’t we? Be honest with each other. Clear. Direct.”

Vincent swallows and sits up straighter.

“Then for the sake of being direct,” he says, “I can’t stop thinking about you, Kendall. And I’ve read every goddamned poem Elizabeth Barrett Browning ever wrote. In three weeks. For fun.”

I bark out a surprised laugh and press my hands to my overheated cheeks.

“What have you done to me?”

It feels like a small sacrifice of pride for the sake of honesty, so I return the favor.

“I watched your highlight reel on YouTube,” I whisper.

His eyes twinkle. “And?”

“I still don’t know how shot clock violations work, and at this point, I’m too embarrassed to ask.”

Vincent throws his head back and laughs again. But it’s not exactly at my expense, because I’m laughing too, at the utter absurdity that this whole fucking time, we’ve been on the same page without realizing it.

This is it. This is where I could borrow any number of lines I’ve memorized from my novels about declared feelings and deepest desires. But both Vincent and Elizabeth Barrett Browning made a great fucking point: actions speak louder than words. And right now, I want to be loud. So, I cross the room to where Vincent is sitting on the side of his bed, clamp my hands down on his shoulders for balance, and then—in one solid burst of bravery and determination—press one knee to the mattress and swing my other leg over his lap.