I had always been a serious human being, even as a child. My ability to control my emotions, even in the worst of situations, was one of the reasons I was good at my job.
But this man.
Lordy, this man had me turned upside down.
I don’t know how long we lay there, but it was a while before my sobbing quieted, and I was able to take few deep breaths, finding my voice again.
“I’m good,” I said, trying to pull away, but he held firm.
“Give me a minute,” he said, kissing my temple.
“Wall—”
“No, you don’t get to show me that side of you, then escape, Tess.”
“You don’t want to clean up?”
“I can feel a few minutes of discomfort if it means gettin’ to the heart of you.”
“Rude.”
He chuckled. “What just happened?”
“My face leaked.”
He smirked. “You mean you cried?”
“Ah, no, I don’t do that,” I countered, running my fingers over his chest.
“We’ll drill down on that later, but for now, let’s figure out what triggered your leakage tonight.”
I groaned. “That sounds so unbelievably wrong and gross.”
“Your words, beautiful.” He smiled gently. “Stop stalling.”
But I kept stalling in the form of drawing pictures on his chest with my index finger.
“Tess?” he prodded.
“Hm?”
“Are you going to talk to me or keep drawing giant boobs on my chest?”
I gasped. “First of all, I wasnotdrawing boobs. I was drawing smiley faces. Technically, one boob was a smiley face, the other was a frowny face, a bit like the comedy, tragedy mask. Second of all, if I was in the mood to spill state secrets about myself,we wouldn’t be naked.”
“Right. I’m gonna go clean up.”
Wallace left my bed and I was suddenly bereft, but when he walked back into the bedroom and pulled his pants back on, I was confused.
Keeping the sheet pulled up around me, I sat up. “Are you leaving?”
“Gettin’ something to eat. You hungry?”
“No.” I patted the mattress. “Come back to bed.”
He shook his head and smiled. “No.”
I frowned. “What just happened?” I parroted back to him.
