For several seconds, Amelia simply stared at him.
The question kept replaying in her head, the way certain sentences do when a person is not entirely sure they have really been said.
'Do you like me.'
Her heart was pounding hard enough she could almost hear it.
She had imagined this moment before. More times than she would ever admit. But never like this. In every version she had rehearsed, she had been the one gathering the courage. Every version had involved her carefully choosing a time, a place, a form of words, and then, depending on the day, either confessing, or being rejected, or watching him smile and change the subject, or, on the coward days, saying nothing at all.
She had never once, in any of those versions, imagined him asking first.
Her fingers tightened, slightly, around her glass.
'Is this really happening.'
She looked at him again, Stan was not laughing. He was not teasing. His expression was calm, but his eyes were serious.
