He tilts the bottle back, taking a healthy guzzle, and I look at him, still too nervous to hear his answer. My eyes flit to the way his throat bobs, inwardly smacking myself on the side of my head for finding it hot as hell. Right alongside those forearms.
“I can’t randomly bring a friend some sushi?” His question is the epitome of innocence. So much so that I almost believe him. Almost.
I smother my smile while I skeptically eye him over the lip of my own bottle of water, tilting it back for a quick sip. “So, we’re friends now?”
“Unless you can think of something else more fitting,” he casually answers with a shrug.
I find his nonchalance, and the truth hiding behind his easygoing apathy, frustrating. Boldness radiates through my body, and it causes a firm question to bubble in my throat when I ask, “What. Like fuck buddies?”
His lips pucker forward. An attempt to hold back a smile. He forces down what’s in his mouth and says, “Hey, if the shoe fits.”
I huff, finding his daring candidness too annoying and galling to let slide. “No, it doesn’t.”
He doesn’t offer another cheeky retort or something more courteous or refined like putting a stop to this confusing repertoire that feels too much like flirting. He just watches me remain flustered and stumped.
“Andrew—” I say his name with the intention of saying something meaningful. Something constructive and discouraging, but I come up empty handed.
“Yes?”
There’s a pause, letting this ambiguous atmosphere simmer between us. It isn’t quite boiling, becoming untouchable. We can still run our hands through it, test it out to see if it’s worth a quick feel. Sift through it until it soothes into something comforting and easy. Or let it continue to heat, combust into an explosion we can never come back from.
“Look,” I finally say, searching for my words while trying to reason with him. I can do this. I can talk to him without letting all the opacity fog up my brain. We’re adults. I can have an adult conversation with him and lay out all the reasons he shouldn’t be here under the guise of visiting a friend, using sushi as an excusefor what can only look like a late-night booty call. “I think what happened between us was a…moment of weakness.”
“Weakness?”
I nod, firmly stamping my point. “We were lonely, and quite possibly horny—likereallyhorny—and fate just happened to bring us together at the moment we were feeling those two very unreliable emotions. And now it’s passed, I think it’s smart if we give each other some distance so we can move on from this, and it won’t be weird between us.”
He does a little head tilt that burrows into my weakness, tugging it out of hiding. “Why would it be weird between us?”
We’ve stopped eating, our chopsticks lying over shiny foam edges of to-go boxes in different formations of X’s. He rounds the two corners separating us, moving cautiously with his gaze firmly on me. He closes the only line of defense I had from him, and I feel completely exposed.
I huff, trying to ignore the way the air around me has been syphoned out of the room. “Because you’re Teeny’s baby brother. Because you’re a practical child. Because I’m me, and you’re you. And…”
He crowds the space around me, and I start to feel small. All the conviction I tried to hold on to so strongly is withering away. But I stand my ground. Only it doesn’t feel firm beneath my feet. It feels soft and malleable, so easily swayed.
“Andrew, please,” I plead. My words come out thin and weak, and I know they lack the conviction I wish they had.
“Please, what?” He braces his hands against the counter at my sides, and I watch his throat bob, pushing down the words he knows he shouldn’t say. His forehead presses against mine, and my hands find the collar of his shirt. They fist the fabric, unsure if it’s to push him away or pull him closer.
My heart starts to play a jagged game of tug of war. How easy would it be to give in to this. To guide his hands around my waistand circle me in a casing of safety and comfort. If only it didn’t feel so wrong.
“Please,” I repeat, my voice sounding the complete opposite of opposition but more of an actual plea. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
He doesn’t argue, knowing I’d just argue right back, leading us into a pointless bickering standoff. We just stand there, an inch of space sitting between our torsos with this static charge that seems to be buzzing inside that hollow space, taunting and provoking. His eyes roam over my body, pausing over the rumpled state of my shirt. My chest rises and falls, my breathing growing desperate and erratic.
“I like my shirt on you a lot better than on me,” he finally says in an intimate whisper, dissolving some of the ache that settled in my chest. I’d changed into it earlier, picking it over my usual DOG MOM sleep shirt.
I snicker a loose chuckle, my watered-down version of a laugh. I lift the collar to my cheek and take in a small whiff. “It’s soft,” I comment. I don’t add the small detail that it smells like him too.
His eyes avert to my other hand. I’d inadvertently pressed my fingers to his stomach. An attempt to create some space between us. It feels safer there than bunching his collar again where I can easily twist and tug.
“I’m sorry, Andrew.”
He offers a smile, though the slight scowl on his face remains intact. “Don’t worry about it.” He says it earnestly, accepting his defeat.
I step out of the tiny cage of his arms, wishing I could linger there a little longer. I walk to my purse and shuffle through my wallet. His eyes stay on me the whole time, and when I reach his side again, I can’t ignore the completely expectant way he looks at me.
“Here,” I say, jutting out a stack of twenties in his direction.
