“I did,” she said, nodding. “Aren’t you glad about that?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Now I know you’re joking,” she said, grinning.
“I think it’s you that is avoiding the question,” he said.
Clay wasn’t sure why he was pushing so much. He was positive it had more to do with him having the knowledge than his pending family dinner.
She sighed. “The only label I want to put on anything is that we are exclusive.”
“That goes without saying. I don’t share and you don’t want to find out what I’d do if it was otherwise.”
“From someone who just got blindsided with a cheating ex who put me into this mess, you can be sure, I’d never do it. I wouldn’t have before.”
“Then I don’t understand why you think that answer would bother me or make me run.”
“Clay,” she said, moving closer again. “Everything about you is such a contradiction lately. I’m trying to get a grasp on it. What I know of you and how it makes me feel is both secure and frustrating. I like what we’ve got. I like that when I called you, you came, but I don’t want either of us to mix those things up either.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“So you aren’t doing this to protect me?”
“Fucking you?” he asked barely holding in his smirk. She slapped his arm.
“Is that all it is to you?”
He laughed. Her eyes widened, which caused him to laugh even harder. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way. Don’t expect sweet words out of me.”
“I’ve never heard you laugh like that,” she said. “Now I’m going to want to get you to do it some more.”
“You’ll exhaust yourself trying.”
Her head went side to side. “Then it’s something to look forward to. But I mean it, Clay. Is it only sex for you? If it is, tell me.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I can’t tell you what more it is, but I don’t need to sleep with you to protect you either.”
“That’s better. Not that we do much sleeping.”
He tugged on a lock of her hair. “You’ve got a wise mouth on you.”
“Watch it,” she said. “Or you’ll find glitter in your underwear.”
He picked her up and put her on his shoulder, his hand coming down on her ass. “You’ll get some back in yours if you do.”
She was laughing so hard she was shrieking.
The sound of it distracted him from his front door opening, his brother standing there shocked by the sight he was seeing.
He put Meredith on the ground. “Don’t you know how to knock?”
“I heard a yell,” he said. “I thought there was a problem. Or maybe she was ready to brain you with a pan.”
“I have thought of it a few times,” she said. “But not this weekend. I got Clay to laugh right before you came in. Someone mark it down. It might not happen again for another decade.”
“Go,” he said, pointing to the door. “Out.”
She sashayed by and out the door. He followed, then locked the doors on his phone.
