Dopplebanger (Meet-Cute #5)

Chapter 20

TWENTY

“I can’t believe they set you up in the office downstairs,” I said. “This is ridiculous. I’m a grown-ass woman. I live on my own. If we weren’t here, we could have sex all the time.”

Evan’s eyebrows shot up.

“I mean, I know we haven’t been, but I want to now, and…” My heart beat an erratic rhythm in my chest. “You want to, right?”

“I don’t want your dad to kill me.”

I frowned. That wasn’t the answer I wanted, even though it was something I also wanted. Or didn’t want. Whatever.

Evan cupped my cheek. “We don’t have to rush it. I think you’re amazing, and I’ve had the best day.”

“I have, too, which is why I don’t want it to end. And my parents have to fall asleep sometime. We can just wait them out and then I’ll sneak you into my room and?—”

“Honestly, I’m exhausted.”

“Oh.” Disappointment tugged at my heart and lungs, dragging them down to make more room for my rising self-doubt. Did guys sometimes choose sleep if sex was an option? I only had one other relationship to compare it to, and that guy was never too exhausted, but he also wasn’t too tired to screw my best friend, so… “I’m sorry that my dad interrogated you like that. I think that Kyle’s betrayal took us all by surprise, enough that my dad felt like he didn’t vet him properly, even though he’s not the one who vetted him, and…”

If talking about my ex-boyfriend and my dad didn’t get Evan in the mood, I didn’t know what would.

Stupid tears pricked my eyes. Maybe I was one of those girls who could temporarily snag a guy but not keep him. After my dad had asked that loaded question, the one about where he saw this relationship going, I’d cut it off. Told him that was enough questions if he wanted us to stay. Then I inquired after his job, something Dad had reluctantly let me steer the conversation toward until he’d gotten caught up in it for real. Only now I was kind of wishing I hadn’t interfered, because I wanted to know, while also being terrified that I didn’t want to know. Not when knowing might break my heart, and I’d finally put the pieces back together and gave it time to remember how to beat. How to love again.

No. I can’t let it go there if he doesn’t love me back.

I was also being a bit of a chicken, what with the wedding tomorrow and all the inevitable drama that’d pop up there. I needed the guy I’d spent the best-day-ever with. The guy who promised he’d be by my side and assured me I’d be fine.

Of course, he also said I’d be fine no matter what, because I was me and could take on the world.

Was it bad to want to have hot, passionate sex with my boyfriend more than wanting to take on the world? After all, say I was going to be a superhero—or even a villainess—even they usually had sidekicks.

“Don’t worry about it,” Evan said, and it took my brain a few seconds to sort through my storm of emotions and go back to my apology over my dad.

“You could come up for a little while before heading back down to bed.” I put my hand on the banister of the stairs, hoping Evan wouldn’t let me really go up all alone. I’d promised him cuddling! Admittedly, I’d wanted some of that cuddling for myself.

“Better not,” he said.

My pride stung, the pain radiating through my heart. Well, smarting or not, I still had some self-respect, and I wasn’t going to beg him to sneak up to my room and spend the night with me, even if it felt like in a lot of ways I’d done exactly that.

I wanted him to want me.

Why doesn’t he want me?

“Guess this is goodnight, then.” Something deep inside of me cracked right open, and I quickly spun around to head upstairs.

Evan caught my wrist, holding me in place until I slowly turned back to face him. His eyes bored into mine, and it was like he was challenging me to… I didn’t know. See something there.

“I see you,” I said. “You’re the guy who’s made me happier than I ever thought was possible these past few days. The guy who’s different in more ways than I realized. The guy who makes me feel safe, even on rides that are built overnight by people in a hurry.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up, bringing out that chiseled jawline that I’d gone from borderline to full-out obsessed with.

It seemed like whatever was holding him back was fracturing. Peeling away.

I stepped down one stair, the extra boost in my height leaving us nose-to-nose, and whispered, “I see you, Evan.”

His expression shifted, and the smile he gave me held so much sadness. He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to my palm that sunk deep and radiated all the way up my arm. Then he dropped it and said, his voice so quiet I could barely make out the words. “Goodnight, Guinevere.”

Since last night, some of the ease had leaked out of my interactions with Evan. Instead of falling asleep, I’d tossed and turned for hours, thinking of him downstairs. Thinking of how it’d been in the car. At the carnival. While we were touring D.C.

Now it was back to the way it had been before our road trip, where he seemed constantly distracted and there was no PDA when other people were around—I’d sort of initiated that in the before period, not totally comfortable with kissing in front of his friends or at large gatherings.

But Evan was the one keeping me at a distance now. My tour guide spiel as I showed him around my tiny town was stilted and passionless.

And I’d shown him the old-fashioned ice cream place! You know it’s bad when you can’t get excited over ice cream that’s been freshly churned.

Maybe that’s the way Evan feels about me. Maybe he’s Gwen-intolerant.

Thanks, brain. Have I mentioned you suck today? If you’d like to not talk to me as punishment, that’d be great.

It didn’t make sense, though. He’d told me I was beautiful, and sure, there was a big difference between telling and showing, but I hadn’t imagined his hard length pressing against me when we’d been making out in front of his car before my parents interrupted us. So glad we got to recap that awkwardness with a meal so full of tension it’d make dinner with a hungry Hannibal Lecter seem like a nice way to pass an evening.

As if I wasn’t frustrated enough, recalling our heated kissing session, with all that exhilarating friction I wanted more of, added a different kind of frustration.

I slowed in front of one of the cozy wooden benches that lined the sidewalk in this area of town. “Shall we sit for a minute?”

“Sure,” Evan said.

Ugh, the perfectly polite, perfectly impersonal responses were killing me. I’d hoped that leaving my parents’ house would help, but our banter remained off in the ether with everything else that’d been building between us before it disappeared into a black hole of suck.

The extra depressing thing was that if I would’ve broken up with him before our trip, like I’d been going to, I wouldn’t be nearly this hurt. But the thought of missing out on the conversations and kisses of the last few days also caused my heart to knot.

Part of me just wanted to swing my leg over him and straddle his lap as we sat on this bench, public decency be damned. Either compel him to grab me and kiss me the way he had yesterday, or to pressure him to tell me he didn’t want me that way.

“Gwen! Ohmigosh, is that really you?”

For all my trepidation about coming home after so much had changed, the way Madison squealed and ran at me took me right back to high school. We crashed in the middle of the town square, talking over each other and complimenting each other’s hair and makeup.

My heart swelled as I took her in. “Man, it’s good to see you,” I said, not realizing how much I’d truly missed her until now.

“Girl, you have no idea.”

I laughed—anytime I ever used “man” to start a sentence, Madison began her response with “girl” and vice versa. “I can’t believe you’re getting married today! What are you doing, strolling around town?”

“Had to get a few last things from…” Her smile turned into a propped-up version and her brow creased.

“It’s okay to say Paige’s name. I’m sure I’ll hear it a lot this afternoon, what with her being in the wedding.”

Madison gripped my hand. “I wanted you to be a bridesmaid, too. It’s just since I can’t exactly ask Kade not to have his brother as a groomsman, that means Kyle’s in the wedding party, and I thought that would probably mean you didn’t want to be, and?—”

“Madison. We already went over all this.” Sure, I’d experienced a pinch or five of bitterness that our town’s small population made it slightly incestuous in the way that there was no way to avoid cross-dating—for the record, no actual incest—but my resentment didn’t get aimed at Madison. She fell in love with Kyle’s older brother, who’d always been super nice to me, and I was sure he adored Madison. “I told you that with me living out of state and so unsure of my schedule, it’d be hard to even make it to the wedding anyway. I truly only meant that I can’t avoid Paige forever and we… Well, we’re working on repairing things.”

A stretch, but it was the woman’s wedding day, and she was one of my best friends and had always been there for me, so for the foreseeable future, Paige and my issues didn’t exist. At least I’d fake like they didn’t.

Madison’s gaze drifted over my shoulder. “Since I don’t recognize him, I’m guessing this is the boyfriend?”

In the blur of rushing over and talking and all the conflicted feelings over what today would bring, I’d nearly forgotten about Evan.

Something I doubted would’ve happened yesterday, but thinking about that wouldn’t help anything, so I was doing my best not to.

He placed his hand on my lower back as he leaned in to shake Madison’s hand with his other, and his touch set off a current of electricity, one that shocked me to my core. It was like that first drink of water when your mouth’s so dry you’re sure dehydration’s already set in.

How can you forget how amazing water is, but it happens on a daily basis, until you crave that next drink as much as you do your next breath. And somewhere along the way, I’d apparently become that dependent on Evan’s touch. Great. Now I’m going to be dealing with today while conflicted and thirsty and ugh.

“Sorry,” I said, forcing myself to focus on the here and now. “I’m slacking on my duties. Evan, Madison. Madison, Evan.”

Did I imagine that flinch, or did Evan actually flinch? The masochist in me whispered that maybe touching me was suddenly that much of a hardship, but then surely he would’ve moved his hand off of me instead of sliding it around my waist and hooking it on my hip. “So nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I need to hear more about you,” Madison said, assessing him with her foxlike gaze.

“You have a wedding to get ready for,” I reminded her.

“Not to worry. I’m good at multitasking.” In spite of her words, she began pulling away from us. “See both of you in a few hours?”

“With bells on!” I cocked my head. “Wait. What’s with that saying? For one, that would take attention away from you, the bride, and of course we’d never do something like that, but why would anyone wear bells anyway?”

“Ah, my little squirrel. You haven’t changed a bit.” Madison raised an eyebrow, her gaze moving to Evan. “Hope you can keep up with her.”

“Not a chance,” Evan said. “Even if I took all of her coffee and consumed it myself, I’d still fall short.” His grip on me tightened and he pressed his lips against my temple. “But I’ll do my damnedest.”

Madison grinned, full out, and pointed a finger at him. “I like this one. I think he’s a keeper.” Back in high school, I tended to go with her opinion, whether I fully agreed or not.

But when it came to this one, I one-hundred percent agreed. During this road trip, I’d realized he was a keeper.

With the way he’d been acting today, though, I was just afraid that he’d decided I wasn’t.