“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Because I’ve seen too much bad shit in my life to pass up something I believe can be amazing. I have to at least try to see if it could turn into something deeper.”
“But you don’t get to decide that on your own,” she said.
“No, you need to be a willing participant. I’m just letting you know that I’m no longer playing this game where we ignore that we’re into each other,” he said. “I didn’t want to risk messing up our time together in New York, but after last night it’s a risk I’m willing to take, because I don’t want to return to New Orleans and have things be the way they were when we left. I want you to be more to me than just the person who watches my grandmother’s dog.”
“Thad,” she whispered. “I told you already, I can’t be in a relationship with you right now.”
“There is no set way for a relationship to operate,” he said. “We can go slow. At a sloth’s pace, if that’s what you need right now. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, Ashanti.”
She swallowed hard. “I—” she started, but he cut her off.
“Can I show you?” he asked.
“Show me what?”
“This.” He captured her chin between his fingers and tipped her head up. “What I’m about to show you right now? This is how slow we can take it.”
He dipped his head and brushed his lips so softly against hers that she barely felt them. He applied slightly more pressure, but not enough to open her mouth. So Ashanti did it for him, passing her tongue along the seam of his lips as her hand snaked up his back to cradle his head.
He opened his mouth and sucked her tongue inside, and Ashanti nearly forgot where she was.
She was quickly reminded when she heard a child giggling, followed by an irritated voice.
“That’s what hotel rooms are for,” a woman said.
Ashanti and Thad broke apart like two teenagers caught kissing underneath the bleachers. She had no doubt her freckles were the color of chili peppers. Her face felt just as hot.
“You’re going to get us arrested for indecent exposure,” she told Thad.
“You’re the one who added tongue. We were supposed to go slow, remember?”
She flashed him a mean look, then remembered that her mean look was milquetoast.
“Come on,” Thad said. “You said you wanted to go to that brownie place in Chelsea Market.”
They made their way there via the High Line, the parkway that stretched between Hudson Yard and the Chelsea neighborhood. Ashanti bought so much stuff that she was certain she would need to buy another bag in order to get it all home.
By the time they made it back to their hotel, it wasnearing midnight. Yet her body was still so wired from that kiss that she knew she would not be falling asleep anytime soon.
Once again, Thad walked her to her door, even though it was only steps away from his.
They stood in the hallway, which hummed with enough electricity to light up every building on this island of millions. Evie’s and Ridley’s advice popped into her head, but Ashanti immediately batted it away. She was not sleeping with this man tonight. Maybe not ever.
No. She wouldn’t say that. She knew better than to try to predict the future, and she loved herself too much to dismiss the idea of ever being with Thad. Would he be willing to wait two years, until losing custody of her sisters was no longer a threat? She couldn’t predict that either.
What she did know was that she was not ready to sleep with him tonight.
Lies.
So maybe her body was ready, but she had never been one to allow her baser needs to call the shots.
“Well, goodnight,” Ashanti said. “The podcast isn’t until the afternoon, so we can take our time in the morning. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to sleep in.”
She stared at a tiny stain on the wallpaper because just the thought of looking into Thad’s eyes at the moment made her feel as if she would catch fire. She let herself into the room and closed the door, pressing the back of her head against it like the lead actress in a sappy rom-com.
Maybe that’s what she could do tonight. Take a shower, get into her pjs and watchThe ProposalorTwo Can Play That Game. At least a dogwalker had taken the pups out.
