I tried to laugh but I ended up sounding like a bullfrog.
“I’m going to take apart your laptop now and see if any of it can be saved,” Ines continued. “In case it wasn’t clear enough, I’m gonna close my door and mind my own business for the rest of the night. You two can do whatever lovey cringey woo-woo stuff you want.”
She wandered down the hall in the direction of the home gym, den, and spare bedroom where Ryan and Jakobi had unloaded her things.
All I had was my luggage from the weekend and the tote bag of despair, and both of those things still sat at the edge of the kitchen. There was one very obvious answer as to where I’d be sleeping though I still expected to hear something about a pull-out couch in the den or a daybed in the gym. If the topic didn’t come up soon enough, I was going to have to do the awkward thing and ask.
“Is she really going to learn the harp?” he asked, back to organizing the cheese.
I banded an arm across my torso. My body was trying to kill me today. “Probably.”
Ryan glanced over his shoulder at me, clocked my hunched stance with a scowl. “Just so you know, there’s a soaking tub thesize of a swimming pool in my bathroom and it has eighty-four jets. It’s brought me back from the dead more than a few times.”
That was an opening if I’d ever seen one.
“If that’s your way of asking me to get naked in your room, you should’ve said something a lot sooner.”
Several wedges of cheese tumbled out of his hands and hit the floor. He dropped his head as a raspy breath rattled out of him. “Emmeline.”
“It was always going to be weird,” I said. “I just kicked it in the ass to get it moving. Now we can get it over with.”
He scooped up the cheese and dumped it into a drawer, abandoning all organizational schemes. Closing the fridge, he said, “I can leave. If you’d be more comfortable.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Where would you even go?”
“I have a place near the stadium. I usually stay there unless I have a reason to be in the city.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Why?”
A moment passed and then another while I searched for the words. He turned his attention to another bag and I got the distinct sense he didn’t want to look at me right now. I laced my fingers together, aware all over again of my ring—and the lines we’d crossed today.
In all these years, we’d never done anything like that.
Although.
Although…
We’d kissed—a lot. And not only when there were eyes on us.
We’d shared a bed—a few times. And we always ended up climbing each other in the night like vines.
Then there was everything else. Massaging his jaw. Flashing him the other night. Asking him to unzip my dress after the charity event. Letting him carry me down the stairs. Jumpinginto his arms when we met for dinner. Hugging every time we parted like we were about to be separated for years.
And there was no forgetting that I’d let him pick up the soggy tatters of my life, move me into his penthouse, and replace everything I owned with a few quick calls.
Maybe…maybe we’d never crossedthisline before but there were a lot of other lines leading up to it.
Maybe this wasn’t weird or awkward or a reason to become a well-water goblin. Maybe this—and bythis, I did mean dry humping my oldest friend on a private jet—was the next logical step.
If that was the case, that meant I had to take another step, cross another line.
“How many—” Ryan scowled as he pulled another two jars of jam from the bag and added them to the others gathered on his countertop. “Why do you have so much jam?”
“Because Shay’s husband’s a jam farmer and he always sends us home with a bunch when we visit. I swear, he grows the best jam in the entire world.”
“I’m aware that you’re fucking with me,” he said, folding the reusable bags into crisp squares, “because I know that you know that jam isn’t something one farms. I know what you’re doing and I know why you’re doing it and I love you but can you stop and have a real conversation with me for one fucking minute?”
