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“Oh my God. What are you doing, Ca—” My heart stuffs itself into my throat this time, and I have to swallow around the emotions. “Daughtry?”
A few girls in the class giggle. At his hotness. Obviously.
“I know you’re working, but you haven’t answered any of my texts, so I thought I’d take a chance and show up here.”
My head is spinning with the information flying at me, like I need to catch it but I’m dodging it instead.
“What texts?”
“Um…” He grabs the back of his neck, noticing the students are paying him their full attention. “These ones.” He steps toward me, arm outstretched showing me a bunch of messages. Like, he may have triple texted me a couple of days.
“What? I never got those.”
His brow furrows and my heart leaps.
“Shit. I mean, darn it.” I check my phone and see that I accidentally blocked his number instead of Cal’s. “Oh my God. I’m sorry Daughtry. I definitely did not mean to do that.”
“Did you mean to”—he drops his voice with vulnerability ripe in his eyes— “leave me in your bed the next morning?”
“I was grabbing coffee.”
He sucks in a breath and nods. “I like coffee.”
“Ya.” I bite my bottom lip. “I know.”
The heat in my body is rippling through me, so before I do something stupid in front of my students, I tell them to work on something while I finish talking to Daughtry in the hall.
When we get out there, I close the door and lean against the lockers.
“I didn’t mean to ghost you, Daughtry. I just needed a second to reset, and I thought that if I took some time to grab us breakfast that that would be enough time.”
“Could have left a note.”
“Ya. That’s a great idea for next time.”
“Oh. There’s going to be a next time? That’s a little presumptuous of you, isn’t it?” But he’s inching his feet toward me, moving into my space. My head is now tilted up to look at him and his forearm is resting above my head on the lockers.
“I’m thinking that since you came here, you must like me.”
“I more than like you, Teegan.”
“You do?” I can feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes because this is what I was terrified of hoping for.
“I’ve liked you for a really long time. So long that I’m not sure when I actually fell in love with you.”
My inhale is sharp. “You love me?”
“A lot.” His finger traces my jaw. “That's why I never want anything bad to happen to you.”
“What took you so long to come find me?”
“I needed someone to kick me in the ass. Evidently, I was pretty mopey for the last five days.”
“Who gave you the kick in the ass?”
“All my brothers said something, but Nash’s words hit the hardest.”
“What did he say?”
