“I’m saying, you’re the best kind of chaos I’ve ever met. And while chaos used to terrify me, you make me crave it. I’m saying, even though this is an absurd situation we’ve backed ourselves into . . . I’d do it again in a heartbeat because it’s given me you.”

The world turns peach-pink, glittering gold, as the pyrotechnics in my chest build to a fever pitch. “You would?”

“Yes, Beatrice. Because while I’ve found an unlikely friend in you, I’ve found much more than that, too.”

I grab a fistful of his coat, so frightened he’ll fade before my eyes and I’ll wake up, heartbroken that this was some torturously vivid dream. “Jamie. Is this real?”

He curves his hand softly around my jaw. His eyes travel my face. “As real as it gets. That’s how faking it with you has felt . . . real. Friday wasn’t an outlier, Bea. It was a paltry expression of everything I want with you. I spend each minute I’m not with you scrounging up excuses to see you again. Trying to find another thing we can do together, and not because I want to teach a few misguided, albeit well-meaning, people a lesson but because I want to be with you.”

“Be with me?”

“Yes. But I realize . . .” He swallows roughly. “I realize you might not want that. We can see this through exactly how we planned when it started. If that’s what you want, I’ll honor that. No, it won’t be easy, but I can accept it if you don’t feel the way I do—”

“Jamie.” I tug him closer, holding him in place as I untangle my thoughts. “Jamie, I didn’t know.”

He smiles softly. “I get that now. I thought I sort of gave myself away on Friday.”

“I thought I gave myself away, too. But I was scared it wasn’t what you wanted.”

“How could I not want you?” He bends and gives me the gentlest kiss, then whispers against my lips, “You’re everything I never knew I wanted.”

I savor that kiss, and I kiss him back. I want to drown in that kiss, to bathe in it and never come up for air. And yet, reality yanks me to the surface and whispers worries I can’t seem to push away.

“But it hasn’t been real,” I tell him, pulling back, taking a deep gulp of cold night air. “What if we’ve tricked ourselves into this? What if we’re just lonely? What if being on our best behavior’s made us think two people as wildly different as us will work?”