Slip of the Tongue (Slip of the Tongue 1)

I’m overheating. I push for real this time. “Nathan’s waiting.”

He backs off, his body noticeably tense. “I’m waiting, Sadie. Ten years I’ve been hoping to turn a corner and run into you.”

“You don’t mean that.”

He puts the heel of one hand to his forehead. “I’m not trying to come off as a creep. It’s not like I thought I’d ever see you again.” He massages his temples with long, strong fingers. “But I kept my eyes open whenever I was in this neighborhood. I’ve spent more money at Quench than one person should. I hoped. I watched. For you.”

“Me?” I ask. “Or anyone who isn’t Kendra?”

He sets his jaw. “What kind of a question is that? Kendra and I have our own shit. It has nothing to do with you.”

“Fine.” I don’t want to get into it with him. If I know Nathan, he’s still dead to the world. His hangover remedy is to sleep the next day away. I want to be there when he wakes up. I want to be there if he reaches for me again. “I’ll see you, Finn.”

“When?”

“Whenever I see you. I can’t make any promises.”

He’s hurt. I’m going to walk away. I am. But ten years ago, I would’ve dropped Ethics and Media for another chance with the golden boy I’d let get away. For an irresistibly sexy, shirtless Finn, asking me to stay. When I’d thought of him after that day, it was with regret. I’d walked out on something special. The way Finn believes we’re meant to be, I’d believed myself a fool to go with Becky.

My heart softens a little. “You really looked for me after that day?”

He takes my hand and kisses my palm. “I did. You are not just anyone to me. You’re the one who got away.”

He begins wrapping up my croissant. I sigh, not with longing, but with a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Keep it. I don’t think I’ll be around today,” I say, as though a pastry is a consolation prize. The truth is, I could stay here. It scares me that I want to just as much as I want Nathan to pull me back under the covers. It scares me that I don’t know if Nathan would care beyond missing his coffee fix. Finn looks like he’s going to be as sick as Nathan, but at least he’d accept my comfort. I glance down the hall. “I’ll walk Ginger before work tomorrow,” I tell Finn.

He frowns. “I’ll be there.”

I pick up the coffee, wake Ginger, and enter my apartment with as little noise as possible, slipping off my tennies. Ginger wraps me in her leash trying to get to Nathan. Her tail goes a mile a minute.

“Hush,” I whisper when she whines. “Daddy’s sleeping.”

We’ve been gone less than an hour, but when I let her go, she bounds into the other room.

It doesn’t matter that I tried not to wake him, though. Nathan’s not on the couch anymore.

I look around the quiet apartment. Has he left? When? I swallow thickly. It’s disarming to think he was somewhere out there while I canoodled Finn, and not fast asleep as I’d blindly assumed. “Nate?”

“Got coffee?” he answers from our bedroom.

I breathe out, relieved that he’s still here. After this morning’s breakthrough, I have a shred of hope this could be a good day for us. I find him in front of our closet, freshly showered with a towel around his waist.

I lean against the doorway and take in the scene before me. “Are you going somewhere?”

He avoids eye contact as he takes his coffee from the tray and tastes it. “It’s almost cold.”

“Blame it on Ginger,” I say. “She wants to smell everything. It’s not easy walking her while balancing two coffees.”

He turns back to surveying the closet. When he takes another sip from his cup, his towel loosens. He catches it with lightning speed. Nathan hasn’t undressed in front of me since I sucked him off in the doorway. I think about Finn’s morning wood. Did Nathan jerk off in the shower? It’s been almost two weeks. It seems ridiculous to hope for a glimpse of my husband’s cock.

For a brief second, he has the decency to look sheepish about it. It passes. “Is there food?” he asks.

“I’ll get it.” I push off the doorway and go get the pastry from my purse. It’s the least I can do, considering the real reason his coffee is cold.

In the ten seconds I was gone, Nathan has changed into his underwear and hung the towel in the bathroom. I can see the push and pull of his muscles when he moves. He’s chiseled, but lean, thanks to his six-foot-three frame.

Nate takes the bag from me, looks inside, and groans. “How’d you know exactly what I wanted?”

I warm with pride. “Gisele picked it out.”

He cuts his gaze to me, sharp as a knife, as if I just admitted to tossing his laptop out the window. “Gisele,” he says, deadpan.

“Yeah.” I scrunch my eyebrows. “From Quench.”

His jaw is clenched like he’s trying to snap it. Her name has set him off. Why? She’s been a friend since she started at Quench last Christmas. She’s young. And beautiful—there’s no denying that. Nathan once defended her from a handsy businessman. It was sweet. She kissed him on the cheek. I hugged his waist and did the same.

I tilt my head. Gisele. Is it her? I blanch. Gisele makes more sense than Joan. She’s younger than me, and prettier too. Nathan and I have joked that her French boss is in love with her, and that’s why she basically does what she wants during her shifts. Like give my husband free pastries.

“Why are you pissed now?” I ask him.

He relaxes his expression and moves on to the donut, unperturbed. He takes a large bite. “I’m not. I just think it’s funny.”

I taste bile in the form of chocolate and pistachio. The man thinks it’s fucking funny to jerk me around. “What is?”

“Forget it.” He swallows the food in his mouth. “I’m going to volunteer.”

“Again? You just did that.”

He plucks a t-shirt from a shelf. “You say that like it’s a strip club. It’s a soup kitchen.”

I hold my coffee to my chest and feel nothing. I wish it were hot. I’m losing this conversation, and I don’t know if the way to get answers is to rage or submit. His nonchalance makes me think the conversation is over.

“I know, and I love that you’re so generous, but . . . I miss having you around here,” I say gently, trying for kindness. “I thought maybe we could chill today. Sleep off that hangover.”

He looks puzzled as he pulls on his shirt. “Are you hungover?”

It’d be easy to blame last night on the Kahlúa, but it only loosened me up. “No.”

“How’d it go yesterday with the photos?”

I’m surprised by the question. It’s maybe the only topic I don’t want to discuss, yet that’s what he finally decides to ask about. “Fine . . .” I glance away. “I think we got what we needed.”

“Good. Are we paying for it?”

I shake my head. “Amelia is.”

“Even better.” He stands in his shirt and boxer briefs, watching me. I wonder, since he makes no move to put pants on—is he debating staying in?

“We can watch whatever you want,” I tempt him. I meant what I said. I miss him. “I’ll make sandwiches. With bacon.”

“I know you don’t get the volunteering thing,” he says, “but to me, it’s worthwhile.”

I don’t know how to take that. Spending time with me isn’t worthwhile? I’ve wondered before, even when things were good, if it ever bothers Nathan that I don’t give back the way he does.

During one of our first dates, he told me he believes all people are inherently good. I’d thought it was really sweet—and possibly an embellishment. It wasn’t. Since then, Nathan has turned down a promotion to help a father who’s never been quite present in his life. Nathan over-tips for bad service, especially around the holidays. He’s gotten Ginger into a dogfight because he was too polite to ask a woman on the sidewalk to put her poodle on a leash. And now more than ever, he gives up personal time with me to help at the shelter. Generosity is important to him in a way it isn’t to

me. I believe people earn what they earn. Like how Nathan and I each worked hard enough to move into better positions at better pay. Unlike a sulky waitress who’d rather be at a New Year’s Eve party than serving us champagne. I’m generous with him. With Andrew and Bell. It’s not something I just give freely.

“I’m trying here,” I tell him. “If you don’t want to stay here, I’ll go with you.”