“And you disapprove,” I mutter.
She clasps her hands, leaning forward. “I don’t approve or disapprove,” she says. “Who you pursue, who you choose to be with, that’s none of my business. I don’t care if you’ve got a crush on this guy and he’s got a crush on you. I mean, heck, I think it’s great. Or it would be great if it wasn’t for the lie.”
“But he told me almost right away,” I murmur.
“Just think how different this would be if you weren’t attracted to him,” she says. “Imagine if that Zack Sykes guy had done this, lured you to a hotel like that. It’d be a freaking horror.”
“I know,” I say, clenching my fist and just about stopping myself from slamming my fist on the table. I place my hand down. “I understand that, Kelly. But I can’t change how I feel. There’s something here between us, something new and interesting and—and magical. Don’t laugh.”
“I wasn’t going to laugh, sis,” she says. “I know you’ve always wanted a fairytale romance. I just didn’t know that involved an elaborate hotel room plot.”
“What do you think I should do?” I ask.
“Forrest Ford seems to be a good man,” Kelly says. “He’s worked his way up from nothing. He gives to charity. He runs a gym for impoverished kids to learn self-defense—”
“Wait, are you researching him right now?”
Kelly grins. “I’ve been reading up on him this whole time,” she says. “You’re my sister. Of course, I’m going to do a little spying.”
I can’t help but smile, even as I shake my head.
“I guess I should’ve expected that huh?”
“It’s all publicly available info. It’s not like I’m turning into some super sleuth.”
I giggle. “So he’s a good person. I already guessed that.”
“Yeah, on paper,” Kelly says. “But the internet only tells half the story, and probably not even that most of the time. So if you want my advice …”
Please don’t say come home. Please don’t make me choose.
“Be careful,” she says, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Shoot me a text every hour to let me know you’re okay.”
“Kelly, it’s nothing like that,” I snap. “I didn’t call you because I’m in danger or anything. I called you for …”
I trail off, and we both giggle.
“You were going to say you called me for relationship advice, right?”
“Yeah,” I laugh.
“And now you realize that you’ve probably come to the worst possible person, right? You know how much I hate the idea of relationships, let alone the actual act of one.”
I roll my eyes.
Kelly reacted to our dad leaving by becoming about as anti-relationship as a person can get, whereas she likes to point out that I went the total opposite.
“So of course I’m more concerned about your safety. But I also trust your judgment.”
“Even after Zack?”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to throw that in your face, sis,” Kelly says quickly. “I was just making a point. You were a kid. You’ve grown since then. You’ve lived. Don’t beat yourself up about that.”
“So you think I should stay?” I ask.
She frowns for a moment.
“I think that’s your decision,” she says. “But mostly, I just want you to be careful, emotionally and physically. This guy’s got you right where he wants you. What happens if you tell him no when he wants to hear yes?”
I shake my head vehemently.
“It’s not like that,” I tell her. “I promise.”
I don’t tell her that I did tell him no last night, and his response was to leave, to accept my decision.
She doesn’t need to know every gritty detail.
“Okay,” Kelly says. “But make sure you text me every hour.”
“Kelly …”
“Just a quick text,” she says. “Use our code words.”
I giggle. “We haven’t used those in years.”
When we were kids, we used to use code words to try and out-fox Mom. We’d drop the word bombshell into a conversation, and that meant we were agreeing to stay up and sneak out of our rooms once Mom was asleep, to raid the kitchen.
“I’ll write Jester each time, then.”
Kelly smiles, but I can still detect some uncertainty behind her eyes.
Jester means I’m having the time of my life.
“That’s fine,” she says. “But—”
“But be careful,” I say. “I know.”
“So, weird stalking aside, do you really like him?”
I laugh and nod at the same time. I can’t deny that what she’s saying is true. If there wasn’t this blistering, burning connection between me and Forrest, I’m sure I’d feel differently about what he did.
But surely that same comment could be made about any relationship.
The whole point of relationships is that you give your partner some leeway, a little benefit of the doubt instead of throwing them under the bus right away.
“It wasn’t weird stalking,” I say. “It was appreciation from afar.”
“He couldn’t have picked a better person to pull that stuff with,” my sister laughs. “Did he know you were a hopeless romantic soon-to-be-bestselling romance writer?”