“You’re here.” She looked up. “We’re talking. You’re getting there.”
“Where exactly is there, for those of us who are slow on the uptake?” Was this it, they were roommates who’d be awkward around each other again?
“We have a thing. A really wonderful thing. We didn’t expect it to happen. You feel it, I see that in you. We’re calling it love, this thing, and it’s enough for now.”
“For now?”
“We’ll always have it, but we’ve both got things we want to do, different agendas, life expectations.”
“You make that sound so rational.” He’d expected drama. Tears. To be frozen out at a minimum.
“I’m just using language you know how to process to get us to a favorable outcome.”
“Which is?” That they were talking calmly should be enough. Never would be enough.
“We have ten days left to be together. We have years ahead of us to be good friends. Neither of us is into pretending this didn’t happen or that we could stay involved long-term.”
“As easy as that?” She’d made it into a negotiation, a sensible business plan.
“Hormones can be irrational, lust can be deceiving, having a life shouldn’t be. We have coupons still to do.”
What? “You want to do the coupons?”
Her posture changed, everything about her softening, her shoulders lowered, one knee bent and her weight shifted, and only now did he recognize how tense she was. “I hate sleeping alone when I don’t have to. It’s ten days, Tom. We were having fun till I shot us in the foot—let’s enjoy being together. You’re about to have a birthday.” She pointed at the table. “Pick a damn coupon.”
In the face of her generosity, her acceptance, he could barely choose to put one foot in front of the other, to close the space between them. “You pick it.”
She bent forward to peer at the tabletop and picked up a coupon. “This one. Since Lulu’s I’ve wanted to know what your fantasy was.”
Ah, no. “Told you it wasn’t enough, that you’d need more.” That one coupon was the story of them. Not even his fantasies were big enough to contain Flick.
“I’m wrung out, Tom. I don’t go around spilling I-love-you juice everywhere on the regular either. It’s sticky and sweaty and stains. Why do you think I was still awake?”
“Plotting your revenge.”
“I had the first five scenarios down before lunchtime.” She dropped the coupon on the table. “I need a hug.”
“From me?”
“It’s not a trick question, you big lump of granite. I declared I loved you this morning and after your exit pursued by a bear I didn’t stop loving you. You’re the best friend I have sex with, it’s been a crappy day, and I need you.”
The fastest way to put a stop to the hurt he’d caused was to walk over the table, scattering the remaining coupons to get to her. “I’m sorry.”
“Shut up and fantasy me.”
He stood in front of her feeling every crack and bruise, knock and splinter and concussion he’d ever received, his body aching with them. She looked up at him with a defiance that was breathtaking, but under that was a ripple of defeat he’d put in her eyes. He had a choice to make, to live in the moment with all its heightened emotion or back them away from the crumbling edge.
I’m sorry I don’t have more, can’t be more, can’t be what you deserve.
He put a hand to the back of her neck, felt the tension there and moved his thumb over the tight cord of muscle. “In my fantasy, it’s a warm night like now. It’s late and dark and we want each other. We make love on the balcony with the stars above us and the city below.”
You’d be lucky to see a damn star out there. He’d tried to make fucking her on the balcony sound romantic. After Lulu’s and Kama Sutra and everything he’d done with Flick and the confusion of this day, it was violently underwhelming.
She put a hand to his chest. “You want the thrill of being seen without the likelihood it will happen.”
He huffed a surprised gasp. She read him so well. She went to her toes and wound her arms around his neck. “It’s a warm night and the stars are so pretty and the city is asleep. I want you. Make love to me, Tom.”
He kissed her in awe and relief and fear and disappointment, and all those barrier feelings got swept aside and replaced by need and urgency and passion when she kissed him back with soft wet lips and cascading sighs and the urgent press of her body to his.