“Hi,” he says, and I realize how long I just spent taking him in.
“Hi,” I say.
He blinks, looking at my mouth for only a second, but the movement is obvious enough to give me the idea, too. And then I’m staring—at that full bottom lip, the one I want to pull into my own mouth and suck on like candy.
“Your place is really nice,” the mouth says. “At least from the outside.”
I pull my attention back to his eyes. “Do you want to come in?”
He’s holding a bouquet of irises. “Sure.”
I stand back, letting him walk in ahead of me. Conveniently, everyone else has disappeared into the kitchen. I’m sure James can hear their excited whispering, too.
“Wow,” he says, taking it all in, but only for a few seconds before his eyes are back on me. “These are for you.”
He presses the flowers into my palm, and then holds on for a couple of seconds, squeezing. He’s so warm. His hand falls back to his side, and he looks around again. Good thing, too, because it means he won’t see the goose bumps all down my arms.
“You actually bought a house,” he says, eyebrows raised.
“It was a weird day,” I admit. “I jogged past it, called the Realtor, and then just made an offer on the spot.”
“Wow,” he says again, and I can’t really blame him because I’m not sure what else he can say, other than Have you completely lost your mind? My answer would be Maybe. But having him here gives me the sense of my feet gently hitting the ground.
“It’s empty,” I say self-consciously.
“Still figuring it out?”
“Yeah.” I hear how emotion pushes its way into the single word, making it wobble. His was a simple question, but filled with enormous understanding. Classic James. “Taking some time.”
He nods and sinks one of those perfect teeth into his lip, biting back a smile.
“Actually,” I say, “I made a list.”
“A list?” James leaves the rest unsaid: After working for Melly, how can you ever want to see a list again?
“I made it in therapy. It’s for me. It’s a good list.”
And his expression clears in understanding. He knows I’ve been seeing Debbie for a while now, but I wonder how the reminder feels here, knowing that I’ve been talking it all out with someone else while he’s gotten nothing but silence. “It’s a list of the things I want my life to have.”
His eyebrows remain raised in interest, so I barrel on. “A house, believe it or not, seemed the easiest to obtain.”
I can tell he doesn’t like this answer. “What else was on it?”
I dodge this one. “What are you up to?”
He shrugs, sliding a hand into the front pocket of his jeans. The waistband dips, exposing a brief flash of skin, and it makes my mouth water. “Rusty got me connected to a few guys down at city hall.”
“In Jackson?”
James nods.
“In civic engineering?”
He nods again, blinks to my mouth, and quickly looks away.
I want to feel the sweet warmth of his hands on me. I want to admit to him that at the top of my list was a relationship that felt like the perfect combination of safe haven and dirty fun.
“Do you like it?” I ask when he seems unable to produce words on his own.
“It’s okay. It’s not the most exciting job, but I guess I’m still figuring things out, too.” A beat of quiet and then, “I wasn’t ready to leave town yet.”
“Jackson is growing on you, then?” I grin.
“I guess.” He pauses, taking a deep, shaky breath. “I think it’s more that I love you, and I don’t want to be far away from where you are.”
The floor falls away. Voices in the kitchen peter out to nothing.
It takes enormous effort to swallow before asking, “What?”
James shifts on his feet, unsure. “Do you need me to say it again, or are you just surprised?”
“Both,” I croak.
This makes him smile. “Okay, well, I’ll say it again then: I wasn’t ready to give up on this. When it came to finding another job, I wanted something local. Rusty helped.” He takes a step closer. “Is that okay?”
I’m staring at his mouth again. I nod, stunned by how fast this is happening, how easy it still is.
Slowly, he bends, and his smile comes closer to mine. “You don’t mind that I’m still in Jackson?”
I shake my head. “The other thing you said, though …”
He laughs, and his warm breath touches my mouth. “Oh, the ‘I love you’ part?”
“Yeah. That part.”
“You like that part?”
A wave of longing fills me, so gigantic that I feel dizzy again. “Yes.”
The smile disappears and his lips part, mesmerizing. “Carey?”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the deal I had with Ted.”
I blink back into focus, remembering that, no matter how edible his lips look, this issue is still a barricade to tasting them. It is moving too fast. “Yeah, that wasn’t great.”