Don't Go Faking My Heart (Sweet as Sugar Maple, #4)

by Kate Watson

"Oh, do you have dyslexia? Cool. I have ADHD. Our brains are going to be best friends." Then she high-fived me, and that was the moment I started to fall.

She snorts, and I catalog that, too. I love making her laugh. Now if I can only make her swoon.

Her lips tug downward, but to the side, too, like she wants to believe me but can't. "Why are you so good to me?" Because I love you. Because you're the person I want to be good for.

Rusty's laugh shakes his shoulders, and the sight makes me smile. He doesn't laugh easily, so earning a shoulder-shaking chuckle makes me feel less doom-spirally.

I've held Ash one time. I've stroked her cheek and let my lips glide across her skin one time. Those motions have imprinted into the sinews and fibers of every single muscle in my body. My muscles will never forget. And my heart—the hardest working muscle in the human body—will never recover.

just want the pain to stop." Tag patted my back. "I thought the same thing once." "What do you mean 'once’? You don't want the pain to stop anymore?" "No. Grief is a beautiful thing, son. It's a sign that you had someone in your life who mattered that much to you." "Why can't that person matter without the pain?" "If you take away the pain of grief, you take away the love from life. You can't have loss without love."

It's like a glow-up for my soul every time you talk to me." Rusty's hazel eyes darken. "I won't stop until you tell me to stop." "I won't tell you to stop."

Real men wear aprons, not capes.

Laughter explodes from her. "Cheater. And you are good at reading. You're a voracious reader." "Audiobooks don't count." She reels on me. "Excuse me? What idiot told you that?"

“If you’re not safe to fall with the people you’ve caught, who are you safe to fall with?”