“Major?”
I shook my head. “At least, I don’t think so.”
“Think so or hope so?”
I lifted my eyes to his, and he held up his hands. “Got it.”
It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, so the restaurant was fairly empty. Still, I looked around, confirming that we were alone in our little corner, before answering. “All of a sudden, I just wanted him bare—and you know that’s not my style. It was like my brain had gone on vacation and I forgot thatcondoms were the difference between casual and relationship sex.”
“So him clarifying that…”
“Felt like shit.”
I didn’t even want to get into how much it had stung that he’d cut our day together short, or that I kinda resented an eight-year-old.
“And why did it feel like shit?” he asked, leaning forward.
I was about to respond when the server came by and dropped off our food: a towering burger and fries for Sawyer and a chicken-fried steak for me. We exchanged niceties, and the server offered me another hot chocolate.
Sawyer raised his brow as she walked away.
“Shut up,” I muttered, sawing off a piece of steak and shoving it into my mouth.
“It sounds like things are more serious for you than they are for him,” he said as he tucked his tie into his shirt. He smashed the burger down, cut it in half, and took an enormous bite, pointedly chewing as if awaiting my response.
I ignored him in favor of eating my steak, but I only got a few bites in before I set my fork down. “I don’t think I’m alone in this. The more time I spend with him, the more affectionate he is.”
Sawyer polished off the first half of his burger, assessing me.
“Go ahead and say whatever you’re going to say.”
His grimace returned. “I’m not trying to be the asshole here, but is he actually showing you more affection, or is that what you want to see?”
I nearly flicked a piece of fried meat at his forehead for asking exactly the question I didn’t want to answer. “Truthfully? Probably both.”
He nodded. “What makes you think it’s possible that it’s more than casual for him?”
“The way he looks at me. The way he touches me. The way he shows me his vulnerable side.” I pushed my plate away, no longer hungry. “Never mind. I’m sure I’m just the idiot who let my lines get blurred.”
“Don’t dismiss your instincts on this, Major. That wasn’t why I asked.”
“I don’t know what my instincts are, to be honest.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to explain how sometimes I imagined that Ren and I were the gay version ofBeauty and the Beast. He was elegant and intelligent and well-read. I read, but different things, and was not elegant. And somehow that meant we were perfect for each other.
The very idea was ridiculous, and I’d clearly lost perspective. Easy to do, given how good we were together. That said, only a half-wit would ignore Ren’s request to keep it casual. And I was smarter than that.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like you feel sorry for me. Like you don’t have your own situationship fucking you over.”
Bringing Hen into this was unfair, and I knew it. My thing with Ren was new. Sawyer had been in love with Hendrix for well over a decade. He lowered his chin, shifting his jaw from side to side.
“I’m sorry, Sawyer. That came out bitchier than I meant. Are y’all still going at it?”
“Yep,” he said, fiddling with the salt and pepper shakers. “You think you know how it’s going to be with someone, but then you get together and it’s always different.”
