Have you changed the door code?
I jerk upright in bed. He’s not offering…is he?
Oh my God, he is.
Heat blazes through me. My breasts are instantly heavy, my thighs tense. This is a terrible idea, of course, but…
Rory
Still the same
Garrett
Be right there
“Noooo…” I breathe.
But my racing pulse says otherwise.
I scramble out of bed, looking at my laundry piles. The basket that needs to be washed on my day off. The basket I washed on my last day off and never put away. The chair that holds all the in between things that can be worn again, probably, before needing to be?—
“He doesn’t care about laundry,” I mutter.
This is a booty call, right? I change into a lacy tank top and panties set, then feel ridiculous, so I pull my comfy sleep clothes back on over top.
I might faint.
I make the bed, ignoring the panicky weird feelings about how it’s where we used to have sex, and how it might feel to have him tumble back into this space with me. Then I run back to the bathroom. There’s no time to shave anything, but maybe a quick trim of the pubes? Is that desperate? He didn’t care about that while we were together, but what if he has new standards now?
He was so fast to offer the hookup. Is he the hookup king now?
My stomach flip-flops at that thought.Hatethat, actually. And I know pills won’t be enough. I dig in my backpack, hoping that I have some condoms from the last sexual health workshop I gave—yes, thank you past Rory, for being a pack rat—and then there’s no more time to think about if this is a good idea or not because I can hear his footsteps on the stairs.
The knock is quiet, a slow double tap of his knuckles on a door he once lived behind.
He looks good. As tall as ever, but he looks bigger. Broader. He fills the doorway. It’s been a couple of months since I last saw him. How much muscle can a lean, lanky guy pack on over a single summer? He’s wearing a plaid flannel shirt over a faded green t-shirt from the garage he works at, the colour making his pale blue-green eyes brighter than I remember. Every little detail gets catalogued. His black jeans are old, but he’s wearing boots I’ve never seen before. His golden brown hair has gotten long, compared to how he used to wear it, and it’s starting to curl.
It’s all painfully familiar, but new and unfamiliar in specific ways at the same time.
“That was fast.” There’s an edge of suspicion in my voice. Not a great start to whatever this is we’re about to do.
He ignores it and rakes his gaze over my long-sleeve t-shirt and cotton sleep shorts. The way his attention sharpens when he gets to my bare legs makes my stomach take flight. “I was just down the street.”
I dig the hole a little deeper. “On a date?”
“You think I’d ditch a date to respond to your orgasm distress signal?” Does he look…amused?
“I’m notdistressed.”
He just stares at me. No, not amused.
Heat crawls up my neck. “Is that what you got from my messages? This was a mistake. Nice to see you, Garrett. You look really good. I’m sorry that I texted you, but?—”
He cuts me off. “You gotta be up in the morning, right? I’ll tuck you in.”
It feels like I’m in free fall. “I don’t know?—”
He snaps his hand forward, catching the hem of my shirt, hooking his index finger under it and using that to tug mecloser to him. “You do, Roar. You texted me because your brain is racing and you need to sleep, and I know how to make that happen for you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to get my mouth on your sweet little stressed-out pussy, okay? So shut up and let me help.”
