I throw my hands up in defeat. “You’re right, I promised to stop. But you know, I didn’t pick you up from your house or buy you flowers, so is itreallya date?”
“I guess you could always send me flowers some other time,” she says, resting her chin on the back of her hand.
“I’d need to know your favorites first.”
She laughs softly, and runs her hand through her hair. “Well you can’t send me those. They don’t sell my favorite flowers in stores. Tulips are nice, I like those two-tone ones.”
I reach across the table to take her hand. “Hold on, what are your favorites though?”
“It’s kind of silly.” Her cheeks flush a little pinker. “My grandparents live upstate, and behind their house there’s all these orchards, acres and acres of apple and cherry trees. We used to go there for spring break when I was a kid, and the fields would all be in bloom, like a sea of white and pink.” She shrugs, taking up her glass in her manicured fingers. “Apple and cherry blossoms were always my favourites. I still try to go up there in the springtime, it always makes me happy.”
“That sounds beautiful, honey.”
She nods, taking a sip through her straw.
“So,” she says after she swallows. “You said some pretty intense things over the past couple days.”
Unease instantly settles on my shoulders, and my cheeks burn with shame. “Amber, I, uh, I wanted to apologise for-”
“I’m going to stop you there.” She gives me a soft smile. “I wasn’t saying it because it was bad. I would have told you if it made me uncomfortable.”
“It… it didn’t?”
She shakes her head slowly, her eyes dropping to my hands as she reaches for them. “I, uh, I wasn’t expecting this, I mean,this.” Her eyes widen for a moment as she says it, and now her cheeks are burning bright red. I realise Amber is nervous. “I liked you, obviously, and had a stupid crush, but… I never expected it to… feel like more?”
The question hangs at the end of that sentence, and her eyes rise to mine. My stupid old brain takes a beat to realise what those words and this look mean. What she’s telling me. What she’s asking me.
Amber wants more.
More of me, of us, of all of this, and I hate myself for the way my heart starts to rattle at my ribcage like it wants to jump straight out of my throat and into her hands. Because yes, I want more too, I want her forever, I want her in my house and in my bed and sitting beside me in the car singing along to her favourite songs until I die.
But I can’t.BecauseI want more, I can’t. I fucked up. I thought it was just my heart on the line here, that my own stupidity had led me into an entanglement that would have me mournfully watching stupid Hallmark movies while drinking too much whiskey for a few weeks. I’d feel sorry for myself, sure. I’d get over it eventually.
But Amber,Amber? I can’t break her heart. I can’t do that to her. I can’t send her off tomorrow with regret and tears.
Shit. No no no, bad, BAD. Shut it down, Rembrook, fucking GENTLY.
I force my face into an understanding smile, and stroke my thumb over her knuckles. “I know what you mean, honey. I think, when you experience a kind of dom/sub dynamic for the first time, and it feels good and safe, it’s normal for that to be quite intense.”
She nods, taking another sip of her drink. “That makes sense.”
“The talk, the dirty talk, the possessive talk, it’s all part of, I guess, my thing.” I jerk my shoulders into a little shrug. “Part of the scene, you know?”
“Mhmm.” Amber licks her lips. “Yeah, it’s all, like, roleplay?”
“Kind of, yeah. I mean, yes exactly that.”
Her mouth shifts into a crooked smile. “You've always been into role-play?”
“No, just with you.”
“Hmm, I like that.” Her eyebrows twitch together pensively. “Is it always that way? Different things with different people?”
I pretend to be thinking as I huff out a breath, but really I’m relieved that we’ve changed the subject and I try to tell myself that maybe, just maybe, I was imagining everything.
“It definitely depends on the dynamic, different people obviously have different kinks and fetishes, so you work with that.” I’m blabbering, my brain still running on emergency mode, trying to steer the conversation any which way but back to Amber’s question ofmore.“I think we both enjoyed playing these roles. You like being possessed, it makes you feel safe, it makes you feel-”
“Loved?” She interjects, and my heart plummets straight out of my ass and into the damn floor. Her brown eyes are gazing intently at me, and she raises her eyebrows. “That’s good, right? To feel love in a situation like that?”
