Confessions of a Former Puck Bunny (Taking Shots #4)

by Cindi Madsen

I found a home in fictional worlds. The characters inside the pages didn’t judge me, the endings were almost always happy, and if they weren’t, they left my heart ripped out in a way I craved to repeat, as illogical as that was.

“Sorry,” Whitney said, wrapping her arms around Hudson’s waist. “We’re going, too. I’ve been promising this guy dinosaur exhibits for a while. You know he’s got a thing for dinos, right?”

Here’s the thing: everyone has issues of some kind.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes to what?” To everything. To whatever you want. To you.

This girl’s already mine. She just doesn’t know it yet.

“I know that you two are just friends.” He tapped the side of his nose. So much for subtlety. Lindsay glanced from him to me. “Well, negotiations are currently underway to possibly expand into more…” My heart lurched in my chest, making its vote known. “If you’ll excuse us, I’m going to take her back to the conference room to make a thorough argument before she changes her mind.”

Confession #14: I’m a hot mess.

You’re mine and I’m yours, and that matters to me more than anything else has ever mattered to me.” I straightened and raised my voice. “Hey, everyone! I belong to this girl. This super-hot, smart girl that I totally don’t deserve.”

“I’m afraid I might need you, too.”

Confession#19: I’ve consumed an entire tube of raw cookie dough.

I was down, so low that I didn’t think I’d recover, and I didn’t see that changing any time soon.

“And what’s even worse is, I no longer feel like a whole person without you, and I fucking hate it.”

“I love you, Lindsay Rivera. I’m in love with you, and I need you, and I wish I had more to give you, but you already have all of me.”

The moral of the story is that everyone deserves a special someone who overlooks their past and their flaws and loves them anyway. That’s the true definition of happily ever after. Which, for the record, is how our story ends…