Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(74)
“What for? No, not at all. Actually—”
“No, I just should have made it more clear, yesterday, when I came to see you, that I was actually completely unable to be your OT, and—”
“Right, no, that’s what I’m trying to say. I fucked that up. I can’t”—I look up at the pressed-tin ceiling, blushing, no doubt—“ask you to work with me, not like that, when the thing is that I like you. And you probably like me? But if not, it’s fine because—”
“Yes, it’s fine. That’s fine. That’s better than fine, Jenny.”
I look closely at him. He looks like he usually does, except he is wearing a zip-up hoodie, which is good, I can’t handle another one of his T-shirts, and his hair is possibly messier. He’s abandoned his lunch and brings his fist to his mouth while he looks back at me.
“The kissing thing?” I ask. “Is it—”
“More like, the wanting to do more than kissing thing. And yeah, that’s better than fine, too. More than it should have been.”
“Oh.”
“Yep.”
“We haven’t actually kissed, though.” I make myself keep looking at him, even though the ohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod part of my brain is sort of dialed to eleventy billion.
He looks at me in this really intense kind of way and then leans over, close. Everything is live, humming.
“No. We haven’t. We haven’t really kissed. My mouth’s only just touched. Here, and here.” He touches my forehead and temple with his thumb.
Ngh.
“Did we,” I start, “take the other kind of kissing and stuff off the table? I mean, in a total sort of way?” My voice sounds really strange, and if he weren’t Evan, weren’t open, honest, didn’t look at me like that, like I’m just the best thing, it would be harder to look at him, meet his eyes.
“Kind of. I keep remembering what your hair smells like, though. I think I’m going to take it back.”
“Take what back?” The not kissing? Because, if he leans in a little more, I am in favor. I am in favor of that hair curling at his temple and that scruff on his neck. I am in favor of his lower lip, the chap on it from the cold air. “My apology. For wanting to do more than kiss you.”
“You didn’t actually apologize.” I lean closer, and feel myself drop, helpless, into that force field that electrifies around a person you’re going to kiss.
“Then I’m not going to.”
“What about later?” I meet his eyes then, dead-on. My heart chokes and slows down, pushing and pushing the blood to my skin.
It’s been so long since I’ve felt this way, like I could let go, let my lower brain steer things for a while.
Let a man do anything he wanted, let him look at me however he’d like to, get all far gone and lost, a body against mine, rough hair, slick penetration.
One small adjustment of the fine focus of my life and there he is—blue eyes, hot skin.
“I’m worried about later,” his voice is lower, softer. “I have all these new reasons to worry about later, when it comes to us. There is probably a lot of apologizing to be done later.” Then he blows out a huge breath, like he doesn’t exactly want to be talking about any of this.
“Wait.” I pull back a little, just enough to think, but my voice stays low.
“Yeah?”
“This is completely stupid. I mean, I’m not stupid, I don’t think. I’m fiercely intelligent. That’s a true fact. Also, I get it. It’s not right for us to be not kissing and working on therapy plans together. Except, that now, I want to work on therapy plans and I also want to do all the not-kissing stuff that’s really just a lot of kissing.”
He smiles at me. “You make it sound pretty simple.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is.” I don’t want to admit that, actually, it doesn’t feel precisely simple. I have been kind of a poor judge of simple, lately.
“I really want it to be simple,” he says, and looks worried. But then, he looks down for a moment, and when he looks at me again, he says, “You’re beautiful” in a voice that has dropped his wryness and is instead, just, I don’t know.
Boy voice.
Boy you kind of like voice.
Low and scratchy, or something.
“Crazy-smart, too,” he says, almost against my mouth. “I could listen to you talk about your research all day. And sometimes, I can tell you know how to enjoy things, and have fun, and sometimes, you kiss me at bus stops.”
I’m just watching him speak, how he’s not looking away or fidgeting, now. We’re just this girl and this boy, and our table is a little too private, and our knees are touching, and so are our hands, and our faces are close.