He placed a cold set of keys in my palm. My jaw unhinged, my mouth hung open.
“Oh my God,” I said, still staring. I blinked and then threw my arms around him. “Oh my God! I have a car?” I asked, leaning back to look him in the eyes. He nodded and I hugged him again. “I have a car! I’ll pay you back. Every penny.” I grabbed my penny necklace. “I love it! I love it!”
“You love the car? I’m getting kinda jealous,” he said, his sweet grin wrinkling his five o’clock shadow.
I looked into both of his eyes, one after the other, back and forth, just like the girls in the movies. I wasn’t sure which one I should tell the truth to. I wished I could look into both of them at the same time. “Don’t be jealous. I’ve loved you longer than the car.”
Josh laughed once, waiting for me to admit I was joking. The longer he didn’t respond, the more nervous I got.
He closed one eye, turning his head to hear me from one ear. “You love me?”
I cringed, not sure what the right answer would be. “Yes?”
He pulled in a deep breath and then let it all out at once with a laugh. He tightened his arms around me and he buried his face in the crook of my neck. His voice was muffled when he said, “I’m just going to hold you for a minute. This is, um … this is more new stuff for me.”
“No pressure. You don’t have to say it back,” I said.
His head popped up. “Say it back?”
“I mean …” I shook my head, feeling closer to vomiting every second. “You know what I mean.”
Josh kissed me once, and then again, a tiny, slow kiss that meant something. “I’ve been saying it this whole time, Avery. You just haven’t been listening.”
I looked up at him, unable to stop the ridiculous grin spreading across my face. It was so much easier to fall for someone without pretenses, without worrying about judgment or rejection.
“Want to take her for a spin?” he asked, holding a set of keys in front of my face.
I took them, noticing two keys on the chain. A bigger, silver one, and a smaller one, older and brass in color. “Is this little one the spare?”
Josh scratched the back of his head the way he did when he was nervous. “I, uh … thought you may want to let yourself in to my place whenever you want. I know Dax would love having you around more often, and a key ring with one key looked kind of stupid.”
“You’re giving me a key to your apartment?” I asked.
He shifted nervously. “Well … yeah.”
“Because your dog likes me and so my key ring doesn’t look stupid,” I deadpanned.
“No,” he said, holding his hands over mine. “Because I want you to have it. It feels … I dunno, like the next step. And that’s where I was hoping we were headed.”
“To the next step?”
He let go of me and shook his head. “Now that sounds stupid. This isn’t going the way I’d hoped.”
I held up the key ring, watching the sun reflect off the metal. “This is the best present anyone has ever given me.”
He beamed. “I’m glad you think so. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off at first, but I kept at it.” He stood tall. “There’s not much I can’t fix.”
I pulled Josh’s shirt into my fists. He was wearing his light-blue short-sleeved button-up dress blues with a white long-sleeved thermal underneath. I was aware of how strange it was that something as simple as a thermal shirt could turn me on, but I pulled him toward my building.
A mischievous grin crept across his face. “Baby … we’ve gotta meet Quinn and Deb in half an hour.”
“Yep,” I said, walking backward. I stepped up one stair, and then the next, continuing back until I reached the top of the stoop. I reached back, opening the door, but he held on to the doorjamb.
“Avery,” he said softly, but my name was cut off when I covered his mouth with mine.