“I’m glad you like it,” he said, bringing me a mug of tea. “You look tired.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I hadn’t slept a whole night through in a while. There were sleeping pills in my purse I’d had for a couple weeks, but I hadn’t taken them yet. I’ve never taken any kind of prescription for sleeping, so I was nervous. Plus, I was holding on to wishful thinking that I could somehow beat the stress in my mind and actually fall into a deep sleep. So far, no luck.
“You want to go to bed?”
“Actually, I want to talk to you.”
“Okay.” He sat down and I did too, curling my legs on the couch and holding my warm mug between my hands.
“What are we doing?” If there was one thing I’d take away from Bea it would be bluntness.
He looked at me, confused. “Ah, I thought we were talking?”
“Yeah, but I’ve tried holding out, rolling with this situation, but the way you say things sometimes makes me realize that we’re not normal.”
He grinned. “I’ve never been accused of being normal, Kitten.”
“You just say things like, ‘want to go to bed’ as if we’re a couple and we’re going to just…”
“Go to bed?” he finished.
“Yeah.”
“And that’s not normal?”
“No. I mean, yes, it is, for some people. But you’re not like ‘oh, baby, let’s fuck, then you can leave.’” I made my voice exaggeratingly deep on the last part.
“Because I don’t want you to leave,” he said.
“Right! See how this is tricky?”
“Not really.”
He just took a sip of his drink, as if calmly waiting for me to sort out my crazy. “It’s pretty simple, Lana. You tell me what you want. And that’s what we do. I thought I’d said this before…” he tapped his cup, then nodded. “Yep, I have.”
Oh, so he was getting sassy now. He just grinned and continued to be casual, without a care in the world. It hit me that I’d been thinking of this backwards.
With Jack, things were so different. I needed answers and his confirmation on everything. He was in control and I felt like I was trying to keep up, trying for more, and didn’t know where the lines were. But he kept me in check, and I trusted him blindly.
With Cal, he was every bit as alpha as they came, but let me feel and be however I wanted. He didn’t keep me in check, he caught me when I crashed. Letting me feel and fall, but supporting me when I did.
“I want to know what you want,” I said.
Cal and I had been dancing around each other for a while. From how we first met to now, nothing was typical. But I needed to know the end result. Because there would be one. That was one thing I’d learned the hard way a couple months ago.
“I want you, Lana.” His voice was raspy, and the way he said that and my name made me really believe him. “The future will be complicated because Jack will be a factor. A prevalent one,” he said. But how he said it made me pause. Like he knew something I didn’t. Like maybe when Jack was supposed to come home? I wanted to ask questions, but didn’t want to hurt Cal’s feelings.
“What?” he asked. “You look like you’re going to chew your lips off. Say what you need to say.”
There it was. Once again, something Jack had once said to me. There were moments I realized how similar things were, how they both were observant and seemed to read me, just in different ways. In those moments
, it made my heart stall because I thought of Cal and Jack, and didn’t know how to respond.
“Does Jack know about us?”
Cal took a deep breath. “Yes.”