Twisting to face me, with her leg now up on the bed, she asked, “Why don’t people know? Does your family know?”
Leaning in, I shook my head. “No. Up until last night, only Tabby and Jose knew about it. I had to tell my brothers last night so that I could explain that I wasn’t doing what you thought I was doing while they were trying to beat the shit out of me.”
Her hand tightened on mine. “Shit, your brothers beat you up?”
Why were we getting off track?
“That doesn’t matter, baby. What matters is that I’m telling you that there wasn’t a woman or women physically in my home. What I was reading was from a book.”
She looked conflicted when she looked away this time and started chewing on her lip.
“You never promised me anything, Jarrod, so you shouldn’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m so sorry for putting you in this position.”
I was fucking done.
It took all of two seconds to scoop her up off the bed and place her in my lap with her legs either side of me so that she was straddling me.
Holding her face steady, I dug deep for the words for this. “Katy, I don’t mind explaining it to you because I want you to know this shit. Granted, I’d have liked to have waited a while to share my secret with you, but I can’t say I’m pissed about it or about what happened. The highlight of my days has been hanging out with you, and before that it was catching a glimpse of you when you came out of your office.”
Katy’s jaw dropped, and she sat staring at me like I had two heads, and then said, “Sha da faa cup.”
“What the fuck?” I choked, not sure whether to laugh or start testing the boundaries of my ability to explain shit.
“Mom used to get pissed at us when we were little and swore, so me and my brothers came up with something that we could say and she wouldn’t be able to get angry about us for cussing,” she explained blushing.
I did my best to laugh as quietly as I could, but it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
“That’s fucking adorable,” I told her, watching her eyes light up. Then I added, “But it’s nutty and goofy as hell.”
Shrugging her shoulders, she was unapologetic when she admitted, “That’s me!”
It took a good while, but I finally managed to stop laughing. Sha da faa cup, how hilarious was that? This time when I looked at her, she had a soft look on her face as she watched me get some control over it.
“I like it when you laugh,” she said quietly. “It’s not just the way you look when you’re doing it and the way your eyes light up, but the sound you make when you’re doing it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.”
Fuck me!
Lifting my hands so that I was holding her face on either side with my fingers in her hair, I pulled her closer to me. “I like seeing you all the time, but when you get that hazy look in your eyes when Elodie does something or I say something you like, or when you’re laughing at something and tip your head back, those are my favorite. Those are the ones I want to take a photo of so that I can see them over and over.”
For once, the communication gods were with me. Happy day!
Glancing quickly down at my mouth and then back up to my eyes, she rasped, “Jarrod, what’s happening here?”
Closing the inch that was still between us, I stopped with my lips about a millimeter away from hers. “I’m hoping it’s the beginning of something between us. Something special that’s just ours. Something where I get to know you better, learn what you like, memorize what you don’t like, spend time with you…”
It was just as well that she cut me off by kissing me when she did because I was running out of things to list.
Letting go of the hand I was still holding, I lifted it up to cup the side of her neck, loving how silky soft her hair felt and how thick it was as I moved my fingers through it to the back of her head. With our differences in height, I had to bend over a good amount to reach her, but with her head tilted back it wasn’t a painful amount. I’d always had a type – tall. Body shape didn’t matter to me, but height did. The fact that she was so much shorter than me went totally against that, but I found I actually liked it. I liked that she wasn’t like anyone from my past, it made everything between us new and special.