“Yes, I’m mad!” he yelled. “I thought we were going to talk about us, but instead you’re canoodling with that guy right in front of me!”
“What ‘us’?” She poked a finger into his chest and said, “What us is there? I haven’t heard from you in weeks, and now you think you have a right to say the word ‘us’?”
“Hallie—”
“Why didn’t you at least text me?” She hated the tears in her eyes. “After that night, why wouldn’t you at least send me a text to say ‘Hey’ or ‘I hate you’ or ‘Ramen is on sale at the fucking supermarket’? Anything would’ve felt at least like something between us. How could you just leave me all alone?”
“I was trying to figure out my feelings, Hal.” He pushed back his wet hair before adding, “I wanted to be sure of what I felt before talking to you about how you felt.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Do you want Alex?” he yelled down at her through the rain.
“Jack—”
“Do you?”
“No.” She shook her head, her soaked hair slapping more water in her face. “I never did.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to the building they’d stopped in front of, so they were under an awning. He looked down at her and said, “Christ, Hal, this isn’t how I wanted to tell you. But the thing is—I think I’m in love with you.”
Jack
He watched as her mouth dropped open in shock, and then it snapped shut. She looked up at him with those big green eyes, but no words came out.
She just stared at him.
“Maybe say something, Hal,” he said.
“Okay, I’ll say something.” She was shivering a little, but her face was full of hot anger. “That is a terrible thing to say, you dick.”
Her words hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he tried reading her expression as he said, “I tell you I love you and you call me a dick?”
“You didn’t tell me you love me, you said you ‘think’ you’re in love with me.” She was gritting her teeth, looking mad as hell as she shivered in the damp night air. “Who do you think you are—Darcy in the rain, telling Elizabeth that he loves her in spite of her inferior birth?”
He had no clue what to say to that.
“It took you two weeks of radio silence to come up with the genius epiphany that you may possibly be in love with me but you really aren’t a hundred percent sure?”
Fuck. Wrong word choice.
She said, “I knew I was in love with you the minute you fell out of the stupid closet at the rehearsal dinner. It didn’t take me a fucking fortnight to get to ‘possibly.’?”
Hope shot through him, even as he opened his mouth to defend himself. If she’d been in love with him at the rehearsal dinner, she had to still have feelings for him, right? And why the hell hadn’t she said anything that night? He said, “If I’m Darcy in the rain, then you’re Mr. Smith, too stubborn to hear what I’m trying to tell you as you ramble on about the way I worded my feelings.”
She squinted at him. “Who in the hell is Mr. Smith?”
“Boiled fucking potatoes are an exemplary vegetable—that is Mr. Smith!”
“Wait.” Her mouth formed a big, gaping O. “Are you calling me Mr. Collins?”
He nodded and said, “I’m trying to tell you something, but you’re too caught up in your own thoughts and opinions about everything to hear my words, Mr. Collins.”
Jack couldn’t believe he was communicating in Hallie’s bizarro language, but they were talking, and she was finally listening, so he was going to roll with it.
Hallie
Hallie’s mind raced as she listened to him insult her in the most wonderful way. She still felt hot and angry, but she also felt like something was happening.
He said, “Forgive me for not wanting to put a label on my feelings, but I don’t know shit about love, okay? All I know is that you’ve ruined every single thing about my life.”
She scoffed. “I have?”
“Yes.” He swallowed and said, “I can’t drive by a Burger King without thinking of french fries in bed; I can’t hear a British person speak without remembering your fucking awful accent; I can’t see a diamond ad without picturing your stupid grinning face at the Borsheim’s counter; and I can’t hear my phone buzz without wishing it would be some asinine text from you.”
“Jack.” She felt a little light-headed. It wasn’t a romantic confession of undying love, but it was everything she’d ever wanted.
He said, “Everything in my life was fine before, but now it’s so different and I hate it.”
“I hate it, too,” she said, stepping just a tiny bit closer.
He ran his thumb over her wet cheek. “I’m so sorry I haven’t called you.”
She shivered. “Me, too.”
“I know I’ve screwed everything up, Hal,” he said as he pushed her wet hair off her forehead. “But I miss you so much I can hardly breathe.”
“Me, too,” she repeated.
“And I know I didn’t say it the right way, but I am so in love with you. And not just in love with you, by the way. I also like you more than anyone else in the world. You’re funny and smart and beautiful, and whenever anything happens to me, funny, awful, or wonderful, you’re the first person I want to tell.”
She laughed as her eyes filled with tears again. “Oh, my God, did our ‘its’ get switched?”
His face came closer, his eyes seeming to get brighter as he, too, remembered their conversation about what they’d been looking for in a partner. He said, “Well, that would mean that you feel like I complete you.”
She wasn’t going to say it, but she raised her chin. She looked into his dark blue eyes and said, “Yeah, it would.”
He made a noise that was somewhere between an exhale, a laugh, and a groan before he softly placed his fingers under her chin, raising her head as he lowered his. It felt like coming home when his lips were on hers and she was breathing his breath.
It turned hot fast—teeth, tongues, and wild, seeking mouths—and Hallie was down for all of it as the rain continued to pour around them. She raised her arms to his shoulders and she pressed her rain-soaked self against him, needing to be closer. She was lost in every little bit of Jack Marshall. He pulled back slightly, looked down at her, and said, “There’s a great little taco place down the street. Do you want to grab a bite and talk?”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
He pointed to the Urban Outfitters across the street. “Can I buy you a dry outfit first?”
“That would be lovely.” Hallie grinned as he grabbed her hand, and they stepped back out into the rain and started walking in that direction. She yelled over the rain, “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he replied, also yelling over the downpour.
“I’m buying a dry outfit for you, too,” Hallie said, “and you have to wear whatever I choose, okay?”
He didn’t answer as they sprinted across the street, and she assumed he hadn’t heard her over the deluge. But as soon as he threw open the door to Urban Outfitters and they both got inside, he pulled her to a stop. His mouth slid into his wide, full-throttle smile as they both pushed back their hair and wiped their dripping faces, and Hallie felt herself warming from the inside out when he said, “Hallie Piper, I am yours. Dress me however you see fit.”
Jack