Let Me In ( Anne with an E fanfic)

Chapter 30

 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0fVzyulMwYWwVRipdTK7Ls?si=NaRBHHLJTwm-gW45An8v3w

Soon they were in the car, the fabric tote on the back seat, and they were on the way again, still some two hours of road ahead. Anne connected her phone again and they were on their way. After a while, among the eclectic selection, Kung Fu Fighting started playing, eliciting a laugh from Gilbert.

"Now that's when I knew your aggressive tendencies went beyond slate smashing," he commented, shaking his head, remembering when they had seen Karate Kid at John's insistence and Anne had somehow felt the need to answer with a kick to something he had said. And he had been too slow to stop her leg, of course, gaining the mockery of both his father and Anne for weeks. Anne laughed as well.

"I was inspired by the movie! I'm not really aggressive!"

"Keep telling that to yourself, Carrots," he chuckled. "I know the truth."

"I'm not!"

"Then it's only against me? Should I get worried?" Gilbert asked, smiling.

"It's only that you tease so much, Slateface! So much!" she said, laughing. "You elicit things in me that are not seen with other people!" she said without thinking. Gilbert laughed and then looked at her blushing face.

"Do tell?" he asked, curious and teasing at the same time.

"Well, hitting, of course!" he laughed even harder at how uncomfortable she was. For nothing. It's not like she was still in denial and they weren't together.

"And what else only I elicit in you, Carrots?" he insisted playfully.

"Well, nothing!" she said, blushing even harder, thinking about the moments they had spent together over the long weekend before invariably being interrupted.

"I'm not buying it. Your face says otherwise," he said, turning slightly to wink at her.

"Urgh! You're insufferable Gilbert Blythe!"

"Ho ho, we're to full names now, Carrots?" he teased and she just growled. He grabbed her hand and squeezed. "There's nothing wrong with it, you know? It's not like it doesn't go both ways." She mumbled something under her breath and he chuckled again. "You know how adorable you look when you're annoyed and embarrassed for no reason?"

"Shut up," she mumbled as the song changed to I won't give up .

"That's a nice version," Gilbert commented after a moment. "I'm so used to the Jason Mraz one, who are these?"

"The Macarons Project," she commented.

"Have I told you of when I realized I was gone far too deep for you?" Gilbert asked softly as the song continued. Anne looked at him, all wide eyes and frown.

"What? No..."

"Remember Christmas 2008?" Gilbert asked as he changed to the high speed lane. They were already crossing Scarborough and there was roughly one hour left of travelling, unless they found something unexpected on the highway.

"You have to be kidding, Gil. There's no way you can go that far back."

"There is. Why else do you think the teasing from dad and Bash was so relentless? I already told you about the Here Comes the Sun thing. They had to have somewhere to drag from," he countered.

"But that's... that's..."

"A while ago. I know, Anne-girl," he commented. "Anyway. We got to your house... Dad was already pretty weak, so I helped Bash with the wheelchair and all and at first I didn't pay much attention. But then Marilla called you and you came down the stairs. You had this short pixie and I'm sure you went to trim it or something because it looked just different. And I was already very attracted to you, that... that wasn't new," he said, not taking his eyes off the road. Anne couldn't take hers off him. "Anyway, suddenly you were greeting dad, and it just hit me. There was no way this was a crush. I'd had crushes over the years. Not many, but enough so that in that moment I suddenly knew that this was different. This was not just attraction, or a fancy, or... any of that. This was going way deeper and was way more difficult to process. Bash had to nudge me to make me react before you turned," he chuckled. "I was just that stunned. Of course he put two and two together and I never lived it down..."