"Not one night?" Her eyes fill with hurt. "One night youcannot sleep home? You only come here to eat? I barely saw you these two weeks."
I smirk faintly, because Ben definitely inherited nonchalance from her.
He closes the distance to her in one small step, folding her in his arms. Even with all his hard edges, his home still melts him.
"We'll stay," I say before he can protest for my sake.
Because he's a good boyfriend, his eyes snap to mine, questioning if I'm sure. And because I'm a good girlfriend, I smile and nod.
"We'd love to stay. Thank you for having us, Carmela," I tell her.
He tilts his head slightly and the bloom on his face means more than the fact that I'm not a fan of sleeping in new places.
"Good, Emma. You make me happy." Carmela beams. "This way, you don't skip breakfast.Tradition!"
"If you're tired," she adds, eyes cutting to me like she's granting me mercy. "You go sleep."
Itismerciful.
We hug everyone good night and stride up to the fourth floor. Even with Ben not living at home for many years, the whole floor still belongs to him.
He hauls me into the bathroom right away, hands me a towel, and says, "Those fishnets stay on."
I frown. “What? No. Your fetish wasn't in the bet."
He grips my hips so tight that for a second, I'm almost sure that he'll be insane enough to actually take me right here.
"You'll be the first girl to sleep in my bed here," he says.
"Yeah, right."
"Swear." He looks at me, putting a hand to his chest dramatically. "You saw my mom. No teenage girl would survive her."
I give himthe fine, you're not wronglook, but still shake my head.
"Come on. Don't pretend you don't like it, being the first, wearing exactly what I asked," he teases.
I exhale loudly. "Fine. But tomorrow, when I've got a chain-link tattoo etched into my ass, you're paying damages."
His smile is all sharp edges like that's precisely what he wants, and he's gone.
I sigh. Seriously, I'm so freaking weak when it comes to him.
33
I'm sprawled across his chest, playing with his chest hair like some bored '50s housewife in black satin sheets, and yes, I'm wearing the damn fishnets. They itch, threaten to make me scratch places I don't want to, but apparently that's what teenage fantasy requires.
Nothing is going to happen, though. I already warned him.
Even if it's quieter up here, the Bellini chaos spilling from downstairs reminds me that the walls aren't exactly soundproof.
We've been lying around for an hour, talking about absolutely nothing and everything, digressing all the time—our specialty.
His room? Exactly what you'd expect from him: grey walls, plastered in trophies and medals. Pristine tennis rackets in the corner. A Rubik’s Cube on his table that he can solve in fifteen seconds flat. He once tried to teach me but my brain doesn’t work like that—too busy complicating the simple things to ever manage to simplify the complicated ones. There's a somber bassline thrumming under the bed because he has speakers wired into his bedframe, and dim blue lights that make everything feel low-key illicit.
"You look happy," I tell him.
"I am," he says right away. "Can't believe I'm going to be an uncle."
