And yet...
“Yes. A date.”
His hands go to his hips, and he tips his chin up like he’s sniffing the air. “Dinner? A movie?”
“You can take me bowling or to the drive-in. Or we can go to Hanlan’s on a weekend when you don’t have the kids.”
He raises a fine eyebrow. “You want me to take you on a date to the nude beach?”
Do I? “I mean. It’s not like I don’t already know what you look like naked. It would almost be a good way to ease into it, if you think about it.” Oh God, what am I saying? “Sort of halfway between where we’re most comfortable now, which is naked and here, and where I want to be with you.”
Nash runs his tongue along the edges of his teeth while his eyebrows do this adorable and confused bunching thing. “Which is... clothed and in public?”
I want to laugh, but also I want to cry, because he’s not saying no, and I hadn’t realized until this moment how scared I was that he would. So many times over the last few weeks, I’d gone to ask him, and every time, I told myself to wait, and now he hasn’t said no. Relief is like a cool cloth on the back of my neck during the hottest night of the summer.
Which... he hasn’t exactly said yes, either.
“This isn’t about my dad,” I say quickly, and his squint deepens, telling me my dad hadn’t factored into his thinking yet. “I mean, he thinks we’re dating because the alternative would scar all of us permanently. But I’m not telling you I want to go out on a date because I want to make my dad happy or anything like that. I...” Okay. Here goes. “I like you.” Chicken shit. “A lot.” Closer. “And... if you like me too, then maybe we could get out of my apartment and stop fooling around in your office and go out and have a night like normal grown-ups.”
As I talk, Nash walks slowly up the hall. His smile is lazy, and I say “grown-ups” on a long exhale that buffets over him as he wraps his hands around my ass and pulls us together. I rest my forehead on his chest, because if I can’t see his face, I won’t be quite so disappointed.
Instead he lifts my chin and kisses me softly. “I have something to tell you,” he says.
Fuck. Here it comes. “Oh.”
“No one ever feels grown-up. It’s a myth we all tell ourselves. But the feeling someone else should be in charge never fully goes away.”
I sigh. “Nash.”
He kisses me again. “You want to go out?”
I bite my lip. It’s so rare that I feel our age difference—except when my dad crashes our Sunday afternoon delight—but right now I feel like a kid asking Santa for the one Christmas present he wants most in the world.
He still doesn’t know I love him, but one thing at a time, right?
“Okay,” he says.
My smile against his lips stretches until it hurts. “Yeah?”
He brushes his nose over my cheek. “Yeah. Anywhere you want to go. Name the place and time, and I’ll be there.”
I can’t help my soft groan as he pulls my earlobe between his teeth. “Anywhere?”
That earns me another bite, harder than the first. My knees go wobbly at the sting.
“Not the nude beach, Brady. Don’t be smart.”
I bury my face in his neck. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
20
Nash
Dating is a funny thing. You meet someone, you go on dates. Eventually, you stop, even though you’re still together. The relationship hasn’t necessarily solidified into something long-term, but you no longer need the guise of a formal event and money spent to see each other.
All this to say, I don’t remember when Dominic and I stopped dating and started being just a couple.
But I know it’s been a very long time since I stared at myself in the mirror and tried to envision how dinner with a man I’m excited to know better will go.
