“I can’t help that.” He circled his arms around my waist. “But seriously, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Quite the opposite.” We sat for what felt like ages, Dexter’s arms around me and our breaths the only sound surrounding us. “Don’t leave tonight.” He buried his head in my neck.
I was dressed now, and I would normally leave before midnight anyway. “I should go home.”
“You could stay the night, you know. Go home tomorrow morning if it makes you feel better not to go straight to the office from here.”
Despite my initial instinct to run, right now I wanted to spend the night in his arms.
“You promise not to return the scarf?” I said, a small smile curling around my mouth.
“With what I’ve got planned to do to you with it, I’m not sure Hermes would take it.”
There was no way I was going to let him ruin such a beautiful thing. I pushed away from him and retrieved the scarf, folded it quickly, slipped it back in the box and put it on the seat under the window. “Well, that’s not going to work for me. No one’s ever given me anything quite so beautiful and I’m not going to let you ruin it.” Even if I never had an opportunity to wear the scarf, I’d keep it. I’d take it home and put it in my memory box. If I ended up retiring at the Sunshine Trailer Park, I could bring it out and remember that one summer in London when the most amazing guy in the world thought I had peacock-colored eyes.
Seventeen
Dexter
I didn’t argue with women. I didn’t have the energy or the will. I’d never cared enough.
Hollie was different.
“Are we good?” I asked, following her into the kitchen where she was checking she hadn’t left anything on. I wanted to make things better for her. I hated the idea that she felt she wouldn’t ever get to be the kind of woman who wore a Hermes scarf. There were plenty of women who didn’t have half her heart or soul that wore head-to-toe Hermes.
It had been a confounding evening, but there was nowhere I’d rather be. The last time I fought with a woman had to have been the last time Bridget and I argued. I’d had things thrown at me a couple of times but I just didn’t engage. And some women would sometimes go completely silent on me. I just ignored it. I never cajoled them into talking about it or told them I didn’t want them to leave. I hadn’t meant to be cruel. I just thought it was better if they cooled off in their own time. And if they were so annoyed they didn’t want to hang out anymore—well, we lived in a free country. That was their choice.
“Yeah, we’re good,” she replied, looking at me over her shoulder from where she stood by the hob.
“Then can I kiss you?” I asked. I needed to know she was okay, not just hear her say it.
I didn’t want to lose her.
The realization hit me like a tree trunk to the forehead—I liked this woman. Really liked her. Liked her more than I could ever remember liking anyone.
Except Bridget of course. Although it had been such a long time since Bridget and I had been together. Such a long time since I fell in love with her. And although I would always love her, I wasn’t sure I was actually in love with her. I wasn’t sure it was possible to be in love with a woman I hadn’t seen for fifteen years.
Not that I was in love with Hollie. I just really liked her, more than I’d liked anyone in a long time. I hadn’t been looking for it. I hadn’t been looking for anything. I’d just thought she was beautiful from the very moment I’d laid eyes on her. And I wanted to make her laugh, buy her dinner, sleep with her. But all those things had been true for other women who had been in my life since Bridget. There was something different about Hollie from the start, but there hadn’t been any seismic shifting of tectonic plates under my feet until tonight. Until I realized I didn’t want her to leave. That I’d miss her if she did go. That I wanted us to talk through whatever was bothering her about the scarf because I didn’t want her to be upset—but more because I wanted to know her better. I wanted to know how to soothe her, how to avoid upsetting her the next time.
It was as if I was standing under a waterfall of new feelings cascading over me.
“The answer to that question is always yes,” she replied. Streetlights shining in from the window lit her up, a halo of yellow light making her look even more beautiful than usual.