Heating Up the Holidays 3-Story Bundle(84)

On a pass over the hill of my lower belly, he brushes over the thin cotton of my underwear between my legs. Looks at me.

I’m not sure what he sees in my face, but then he starts kissing me right at the edge of where my underwear is rolled down, and his hands, warm, shape my ass again and again until my underwear is easing off, until it’s hardly hanging on and he slides it off with one of his long, slow, touches.

He brushes his fingers over my curls there, and I suddenly feel a blush start, over my neck and into my face, and I can’t help it, I reach and grab onto his hand like I would stop him.

I need him.

I’m not certain if I want him yet, there is so much we haven’t said. More we haven’t seen.

But I need him. I need the Evan who made me see with my eyes closed and knows that I cry. The one who lay down with me in a courtyard and hasn’t asked why. I need the one who fired himself just so he could touch me, knowing perfectly well that I’m actually just fine without him.

I need to tell him one thing first, ask him another.

I sit in a chair right next to him, so I don’t feel so exposed, bottomless, standing in front of him.

“What does f/16 mean?”

He stills. I look at him, and his expression is hard to take in—his eyes are searching mine, his mouth his tight, his eyes shiny.

“I knew before,” I say. “From in the van. You saw the pictures on my desk. You didn’t say.”

He lets out a breath, loud, and looks down. “I’m sorry, I—”

“You were always completely honest with me. I trusted you with things I didn’t trust anyone else with.” I make myself breathe.

“I’m sorry, too,” I say, “I didn’t tell you, as soon as I saw, in the van, but I didn’t even have the words. Then, today, I got bad news from Dr. Allen, about my peripheral loss, and all I wanted was you.” Hearing myself say that, my throat closes, choking, and his fists tighten.

“Not therapy, Evan, but you. The way you always see me as smart and capable. How I can relax around you and just feel the way I’m feeling, but I couldn’t go to you because you didn’t say; you kissed me, the very first time you kissed me, and you knew, but you didn’t say.”

“I was—when I saw those pictures and realized what it meant, God, Jenny. I was so happy. I’ve loved talking to you online, the serendipity of it, the things you said about my pictures, and more and more, I realized Lincoln was a real woman, of course I knew that, but she was starting to live outside of my own mind. I respected her boundaries, of course, but I wanted to know her.”

“What about me?”

“Then there was you. I told you about you. You were real as soon as you walked into my office, so intelligent and angry. More and more, you made Lincoln less real, and that worried me. I had a relationship with her that had started to mean something to me. It’s why I wanted to meet her. Needed to meet Lincoln. I had been working through my feelings with you for longer, trying to be honest with myself, then I met Lincoln online. It was confusing. Absolutely everything I was feeling. Meeting Lincoln was important to understand how I felt about both of you. When I saw the picture on your desk, it was the worst best thing. Some kind of miracle answer to my problem. But impossible, because how could you trust such an unbelievable coincidence?”

“I sent you my picture! I told you my name! And you knew and sent me bits and pieces.”

“I thought—”

“What?” What, exactly, what. I want him to tell me. This incredible convergence of the university, our landlord’s contract with them, a Christmas letter, my love of pictures, out of all that, what?

I needed him to tell me.

“I remembered, through all of this, when I was moving out, that the landlord had told me a woman from Seattle, a postdoc, was moving in. I thought of all the times, if I had some reason to look at the contact sheet in your chart, that I would’ve found out that way. Always, always, we were drifting together, always, I was getting to know you more, falling for you. I just thought. I don’t know. I thought, when I saw that picture on your desk, realized you wouldn’t believe in it. Believe or trust in me.”

“What?” I whisper. He touches my hair, but just the long ends over my shoulder, not looking at me.

“I could hardly believe any of it myself. We had just agreed to meet, finally, I had wanted to meet you after the first time we chatted online. Already, I was nervous about meeting Lincoln because of the—intimacy,” he whispered this, and a flush rose from his throat.

He touched the hair on my shoulder again. “I had come to your office to tell you how I felt about you; meanwhile, I had all these feelings about Lincoln, and like I said, Lincoln was real to me, even though we hadn’t met. I’d been so confused, you have to understand, just fucking off my pins.