“Honesty?” he asks gruffly.
His hands are still gripping my hips, and my lip still stings from where he kissed me.
“Always,” I choke out.
“I want you to come home with me tonight.”
Excitement and blind panic make my heart beat erratically, and thoughts fly so fast through my mind that I can’t hold on to any of them.
“For tonight,” he continues. “I don’t do tomorrow, but I want you for tonight. Can you handle that?”
The words are a gauntlet. Somehow I always knew it would come down to this. My experience with men is limited, and he must know that. He’s daring me to make good on the lie I told him days ago, that I was fine with casual. Maybe he thinks he’ll get over this feeling if we finally fully acknowledge it. Maybe it’s another attempt to teach me a lesson. Either way, I’m playing with fire hot enough to match the one burning inside me. It’s the ultimate means to an end. If I back out now, it proves him right on so many levels, and I don’t know if I’ll get another chance.
It’s hard to think with him this close, with his eyes reading every thought on my face. He gave me honesty, and I answer him with the only truth I can. He wants me for tonight. Can I handle it?
“I want you . . . any way I can get you.” If not an answer to his question, it’s at least the truth.
The words seem to frustrate him even more but not enough to back down. He grabs my hand and leads me off down the street, and I hurry to keep up in my daze. The night is cold enough that I can see my breath in front of my face coming out in excited bursts. In the back of my mind I can hear Tosh cautioning me not to start any relationship with a beggar’s mentality.
We ride the whole way to Santa Monica in tense silence. It feels awkward and also weirdly exciting. I’ve never been to his house before, but I don’t even have time to admire it before he’s opening my car door and tugging me inside with the same determination he pulled me down the street. He takes my jacket and hangs it on a hook by the door. That banal gesture makes me pause long enough to remember something. I cross my arms and fix him with a stare.
“What about your date? Did you just leave her there?”
I want to believe I might change my mind if he admits that he’s been so callous, but I’m honestly not sure that’s true.
He tucks his hair behind his ear sheepishly.
“She wasn’t my date,” he tells his shoes.
“What?”
“I met her out front. I thought maybe it would help you understand . . .”
Misguided, yes, but at least he wasn’t intentionally being malicious. The relief I feel at this discovery is all-encompassing. I can’t help my giggle, and when he looks up in surprise, I smile at him. I look down at my rumpled clothing and touch my lips, which are still on fire where he kissed them earlier.
“You sure showed me.”
His grin is lopsided, and for the briefest moment he seems vulnerable, like the person I met on New Year’s, not the successful businessman who’s always in control. His face clears of the tender expression.
“I’ll take you home right now if you want to go. We don’t ever have to talk about this again.”
Any hesitation I might have had goes right out the window. I know him, and whatever he thinks about this night, it is going to lead to a tomorrow. I close the distance between us by a foot. It’s either the smartest or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
“Don’t get cold feet on me now, big guy.”
He takes a step closer to me, and when he finally speaks he sounds so sad.
“Did you know that Tinker Bell dies in the original Peter Pan?” He reaches out to play with the ends of my hair where blue meets black. “And when they ask him about her later, he can’t even remember her name?”
I hate the melancholy in his voice and the reality creeping back alongside all of the feelings running through me. I push both of them away with an action.
My hands are steady when I slide the first button of my blouse through its hole. His eyes fly to mine, and the force of his gaze is like an earthquake; everything inside me shakes. Another button comes undone, and the one after it. His blue-gray eyes are riveted on the movement of my fingers, and my gaze is trained on the play of emotion on his face as he watches.
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I’m mortified. But the embarrassment that’s surely staining my cheeks is nothing compared to the way it feels to be the one who put that look in his eye. My blouse falls to the floor with a whisper. Something like wonder fills his eyes. His fingertips feel hot against my skin as they slide along the pattern of shapes in every color of the rainbow that lines my rib cage and runs all the way down to my hip.
“Yet another thing I wouldn’t have expected, and yet it makes total sense.”
I watch then in mesmerized silence as he lowers himself to his knees in front of me. When his lips touch the first bit of artwork, I fight the urge to crumple to the floor along with him. He kisses one image after another with something close to reverence, and I give myself permission to do something I’ve wanted to do since the moment I met him. My shaking fingers hover over the crown of his head for a long moment like a priest offering benediction. I’m almost afraid to actually touch him, since that feels like an official invitation and the sum total of my knowledge about what to do next ended with taking off my shirt. My college boyfriend would have just sort of taken it from there, but I don’t want to be the bystander here. I’ve dreamed about this too many times to just go along for the ride; I want to be involved in every part of it.
My fingertips slide into his hair, adding another sensation to the myriad that fight to consume me. There are so many feelings battling for attention—how do I choose? My focus flits from one nerve ending to another until I think I might be dizzy from the chase to experience it all. Suddenly he’s upright again, and I’m wrapped around him like that scarf; I’m lips and teeth and tongue and fingers and a desperate need to touch every single part of him as fast as I can. We’re backing down a hallway and bumping into every surface we touch. A picture frame flies off the wall and crashes to the ground as I gasp.
“Don’t worry,” he says between kisses. “I hated that photo.”
I’m laughing into his smile when my back hits a doorknob. I can’t stop my wince, and then my smile. How in the world could I explain that bruise to someone? Thank gracious it’s not summertime, or my collection of backless sundresses would seriously suffer for a chance at wardrobe rotation.
“Damn!” His fingers reach around to the spot on my back. “Are you OK?”
I nod, fumbling with the doorknob behind me. The door gives way sooner than expected, and we both tumble through it in a heap. This time he’s the one who gets dinged by breaking my fall on the hardwood floor. I’m laughing so hard it takes me a minute to bring him back into focus. My laughter fades but not my joy. We’re both on our sides now, inspecting each other with dancing eyes. I slide my hand up to pillow my face on the hard floor. I could lie here all night and stare at him and be totally happy. His eyes are filled with laughter as he props his head up with his hand.
“I’m usually much smoother than this,” he tells me.
I grin again.
“I don’t doubt it.”
Some of the sparkle leaves his eyes.
“You’re much too sweet to be here with me.”
My cheek slides against my palm as I nod at him.
“Probably.”
“Do you want to leave?”
The grin hasn’t left my face when I shake my head.
When he doesn’t move, only continues to debate it internally, I slowly move forward to touch his mouth with my own. Because I can do that now. I can, in this moment, touch and kiss Liam however much I want to. And in this moment I want to touch him more than I want to breathe.
I wake up in the morning alone.
Chapter SEVEN
I must read the note he left on the nightstand at least fifty times on the way home.
Wonderfully weird, was better than I might have imagined. —L
I fly through every possible reaction in the fifteen-minute ride back to my house. Elated that last night happened. Happy that, according to his note, he enjoyed it too. Anxious and unsure where this leaves us, and finally miserably sad that he’d do something as obnoxiously cliché as leaving me a note on the nightstand. How depressingly trite.
To add insult to injury, my hair is a disaster and my makeup isn’t any better. I suppose I should be happy I’m not wearing a cocktail dress, but I don’t think my walk of shame could be any more obvious even if I were. My Uber driver, Saul, tries to make conversation, but my gigantic sunnies and my monosyllabic answers finally put him off. Instead of talking I stare out the window and watch the bright and sunny day slip by.
Liam sent me a text as well, a confirmation of the car service he’d ordered to take me home. He mentioned that they’d wait outside until I was ready to go. I considered using it too, but in the end the whole thing made me kind of nauseous. I’m not sure how I allowed last night to happen with a man who couldn’t even stick around until morning to tell me good-bye. I know he said it was casual, but I guess I wasn’t totally prepared for what that meant. I flex my fingers nervously, and when that doesn’t ease the tension, I give in and pop each knuckle. Saul throws me a disgusted look in the rearview mirror.
My phone vibrates with a message, and my breath catches. When I see it’s only Landon, the air all comes back out in a rush.
Liam never came back to the bar last night and I haven’t heard from you . . . Coincidence?
If I were more mature, I might handle this whole thing in silence. I might never talk about last night or what is quickly shaping up to be a terrible mistake and an epic heartbreak. But the truth is I’m not more mature, and all I want is my best friend—and lots and lots of sugar.
I need some chocolate.
Her response is immediate.
How much and where am I delivering?
I send her a picture meme of a little kid eating a candy bar four times as big as he is and tell her I’m about ten minutes from home.
That bad?
For the first time all morning, I feel the tears burning the back of my throat.
That bad.
Oh girl.
Her response is only two words, but I imagine it in that sweet, concerned southern voice that Landon has down to a science, and it breaks the dam on whatever has been holding my tears back. If Saul sees them streaming silently down from behind my oversize sunglasses, he’s polite enough not to mention it.
I left the front door unlocked, so Landon just walks right into my bedroom. She’s wearing a black gingham button-down blouse under a red cardigan; she looks like she just walked out of the J. Crew fall catalogue. Me? I’m freshly showered and swimming in oversize flannel. She eyes my pj’s worriedly.
“Bad enough for My Little Pony?”
I duck my head and fight another round of tears.
“Oh no,” Landon whines and pulls me in for a hug. “What happened? Did your plan backfire?”
I shake my head against her shoulder and my voice comes out wobbly.
“No.”
“Did you get into a fight?”
Another shake of my head.
She holds me at arm’s length to study me.
“What happened last night?”
“We, uh . . . um, we . . .” My voice trails away as I sort of gesture awkwardly at the bed with my hands.
Landon’s eyes widen to their full capacity. Her head may pop off of her neck at any given moment.
“What?”
My shoulders slump at the thought of the lecture I’m sure is coming. I grab the bag of candy she brought and start to work my way through a king-sized Kit Kat.
“You . . . you . . . you and Liam had . . .”
I don’t look up from the candy bar.
“Yes.”
She must open and close her mouth three times before she thinks of what to say next.
“Wow” is what she settles on.
I rush to defend myself from the look in her eyes.
“I know that’s not the kind of person you are, but I—”
“That’s not the kind of person you are either,” she interrupts quietly.
My shoulders fall again.
“Please don’t be judgmental, Landon.” I gesture to my blotchy face and the fact that I’m wearing PMS pajamas before noon. “I’m barely keeping it together here.”
She grabs for my hands.
“I am not judging,” she says emphatically. “You’re a grown woman, and I’m not trying to push my beliefs off on you. But Miko—a one-night stand? That’s not like you.”
I want to look away from her sad eyes, but I force myself to ask the question.
“Why do you think it was a one-night stand?”
She smiles kindly.
“Was it something else?”
I try so hard to keep my bottom lip from wobbling, but when I finally get the words out, I’m bawling before I even make it to the end of the sentence.
“I thought it was at the time.”
“Oh girl,” Landon says into my hair. I don’t even remember throwing myself into her arms.
“I am such an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot,” she tells me vehemently.
I give her a jerky nod while I sit up. “I am. I thought I was mature enough to handle him, to handle this. I have no idea what I’m doing, and now I’m worse off than I was before.”
She kindly runs her hand over the crown of my hair.
“We all make mistakes, girl. That’s how we learn better for next time.”
I sit back against the pillows and grab for the candy bar. I know in my head that she’s right, but my heart feels like it got sucker punched. I have no one to blame but myself. I take a couple of bites of chocolate before I can find the courage to tell her what I’m thinking.
“I know everyone makes mistakes,” I tell the piece of candy bar in my hand rather than my friend sitting a few feet away. “I just feel like mine are worse, or at least more plentiful. I never say the right thing. I never do the normal thing. I’m awkward and—”
“Where is all of this coming from?” Landon demands. “You are one of the most confident people I know. Who cares if you’re different? Normal is boring.”
I finish off the last of the candy bar. It’s a pretty sad day when even chocolate-covered wafers can’t make you feel better. “I think it’s easier for you to say that because you’re all in perfect love with Brody; you’re past the need for pony pajamas.”
Her smile is rueful.
“Girl, you have no idea what you’re talking about. I still make mistakes all the time.”
Maybe it’s petty of me, but I so want to believe she’s telling the truth.
“Like when?”
She settles into the pillows alongside me with a long sigh. “Like when I freaked out on Brody about that Sloan woman.”
For once, I’m the one who gasps. “You didn’t!”
She’s already nodding. “I did.”
“I thought you said you were cool with his past.”
“I am. Well, I was. Something about finding out her name made it so much more real.” She grabs for the bag of candy on my lap and finds herself a piece. “I mean, who has a name like Sloan?”
“Fa
t girls,” I reply quickly.
She slaps my arm playfully. “That’s so rude. Don’t say that, especially when we know it isn’t true. Girls named Sloan are always beautiful and tall and—”
“Prone to venereal disease.”
“Not true,” she says through her giggles.
“True. And she most definitely has back acne and halitosis and a tattoo of Tweety Bird on her lower back that stretched out due to all that weight gain.”
Landon is full-on laughing now, which was my intention.
This Sloan creature, whoever she is, is probably lovely and kind, but as the ex-girlfriend of my best friend’s man, it is my sworn duty to dislike her.
“Well, even still, I freaked out on him. I raised my voice. I was crying like an insane person and demanding to know details.” She covers her face with both her hands. “It was irrational and so immature. When I calmed down later, I was mortified.”
My shock makes me momentarily pause my candy consumption. I actually have a really hard time imagining Landon doing any of that. She’s always so calm and cool; I can’t believe she went full crazy girlfriend on him.
“How did he react?” I finally think to ask.
She smiles at the memory. “The dummy actually apologized to me. He said if he had been more honest with me, I wouldn’t have felt so insecure about it. I told him that was dumb reasoning, because he was entitled to his privacy. I also said that I was insane and he had every right to be mad at me for at least twenty-four hours.”
I feign shock.
“You gave him permission to be upset with you for an entire day?”
She doesn’t catch my joke and plows on around it with a nod.
“Yes. He didn’t take it, though. He said he loves and accepts me as I am, even if that means I get so angry and slam his front door so hard that the mirror in the entryway falls and breaks.”
This time my shock is not faked.
“Not the vintage mercury glass!”
She nods gravely. “I’m sorry. I know that took you forever to find for him.”
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