Kylie Cantrall's Arc

Chapter 14 of 78

The grilled cheese sat half-eaten on the plate between them. Arianna's puppy had curled up under the piano bench. Kylie kept looking at the red box in Arianna's lap and the songwriting board on the floor. The gifts were given. The verse was still blank. And Arianna had not asked what any of it meant. Kylie knew why. She had handed over a necklace and a song and a key, and never once said the word out loud. Arianna would fly home tomorrow after meeting Kylie's mother. If Kylie didn't say it now, Arianna would sit on the plane and try to guess. She would guess wrong. She would decide it was safer to step back. "I want to show you one more thing," Kylie said. She stood and held out her hand. Arianna took it. Kylie led her upstairs to the guest room. She pushed the door open. In the center of the room was a red bed shaped like a heart, still creased from the delivery wrap she had cut off at three in the morning. Arianna stopped in the doorway. "Kylie." "I ordered it the night before you came," Kylie said. "I didn't want to ask my assistant for a guest room, because my assistant talks. So I picked this. It's ridiculous. I know." Arianna laughed once, quiet. She stepped inside and touched the padded headboard. Kylie stayed in the doorway. Her hands were shaking. She pushed them into her pockets. "I've been giving you things all day so I wouldn't have to say it," she said. "The necklace. The song. The key last week. I kept thinking if I gave you enough, you'd know." Arianna turned around. "I want you," Kylie said. "Not as a pen pal. Not as a fan. I want you to be my girlfriend. I want you to come back after tomorrow. I want the last verse of that song to be about us, not about a maybe." Arianna sat down on the edge of the heart-shaped bed. She kept her hand on the necklace box in her lap. "I read your letter a hundred times before I called," Kylie said. "I should have said this the first day at the estate. I was scared." "Say it again," Arianna said. "I want you to be my girlfriend." Arianna nodded. Her eyes were wet. "Yes." Kylie crossed the room and sat beside her. Arianna leaned her forehead against Kylie's. "I was going to go home tomorrow and try to figure out what we were," Arianna said. "I had a whole list of guesses." "Throw it out." "Already did." Downstairs, the puppy barked once. Bella barked back. Kylie laughed and wiped her face. Tomorrow her mother would arrive. After that, the label. But the question between her and Arianna was closed. She had said it. Arianna had said yes.