I flip through his “recently watched” for clues, but it’s a mishmash of different genres and I can’t tell if he watched them or if Juno did. His door creaks open again and my stomach squirms. I feel like I failed some kind of compatibility test that’s going to tip him off to the fact that I’m all wrong for him, even if we do have insane chemistry between the sheets.
“Decision paralysis?” he guesses with a chuckle, sliding onto the couch next to me. The khakis and polo he walked in wearing have been replaced by a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and his hair looks a little less tidy, like he ran his fingers through it a few times. “Oh, how about the newJohn Wick?”
A few of the knots in my stomach loosen and I smile.
“You likeJohn Wick?”
“I like badass action heroes and explosions.” He grins.
“Hell yeah.” I hold up my hand for a high five and he slaps it.
The line between date and bro hangout is blurry, but it feels right for me. Does it feel right for him or am I friend zoning myself by dropping the ball on the romantic shit? I’m never this insecure and I’m not loving it. But, fuck, I want to impress him. I want to get this right.
Percy rents the movie, then grabs a slice of pizza and settles back on the couch to get comfortable. He’s close enough that our shoulders bump and our knees brush when he lets his legs relax and fall open a little wider.
“What did Juno whisper about me before they left?” I ask curiously, grabbing a slice and then slinging my arm over the back of the couch so it’s kind of around his shoulders. “Giving me a good review, I hope?”
He chuckles. “What makes you think that what they whispered was about you?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he admits, taking a bite of his pizza and chewing it slowly.
“Are you seriously going to leave me hanging?”
He waffles his head back and forth like he’s really considering it. His eyes meet mine and I can see a hint of shyness in them. It’s different from the way he looked at me last weekend before we hooked up though—less guarded and more hopeful.
“They told me not to let my insecurities screw this up because you seem like a great guy.”
He swallows nervously and then takes another bite of his slice.
I laugh again and settle a little closer to him.
“Funny, that’s the same thing Fender said to me before I left our apartment tonight.”
He shoots me a skeptical look. “What could you possibly have to be insecure about?”
Percy looks me up and down in an exaggerated way. That “not good enough” place inside me twinges. Does he only see me as a piece of meat? Am I just his Captain America Sex Doll until he meets someone who’s a better fit?
“Picking the wrong movie, for one thing,” I say lightly, and he snorts, settling a little closer to me and putting his free hand on my thigh.
“Well, I guess we’ll both just have to work on our insecurities.”
He tilts his head towards me and I dip closer, bumping my nose against his and feeling the warmth of his breath on my face.
“I guess we will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
PERCY
Pizza,beer, and an action movie might not be the first date I would have planned—and I’m still not totally sure if this even qualifies as a date—but it’s more fun than I expected. Then again, everything with Butch is more fun than I would have expected. In a million years I wouldn’t have thought I’d like rock climbing or, god help me, jogging, but he has this way of opening me up to things. Maybe it’s that disarming smile of his, or the gentle authority in his voice that gives me goose bumps every time he opens his mouth. Or maybe it’s that he dives into everything with both feet and I want to be more like that too.
“Is everyone in New York City an assassin at this point in the franchise?” I toss my half-eaten crust back into the nearly empty box and take a sip of beer.
“Never question movie logic,” Butch says wisely.
“What’s your favorite movie?” I ask, tilting my head so I can look at him.
