“I’m gonna… go.” Esme backed out of the doorway and disappeared into a door down the hall.
Ivy stood there, one side of her mouth quirked up. “What if I changed my mind?”
“Well, then I’d order pizza, and we’d hang out here. I don’t care where we go. I just want to be with you. That’s all I ever really wanted.”
Whoa. That felt vulnerable. A little too much actually.
Dial it back in, man.
“Mm, well, it’s clear you spent a lot of time getting ready. I’d hate for that to go to waste. We can go to dinner and split the bill.”
“Not a chance.” I held out my hand, and she stared at it for a beat, then took it. Her fingers slid against mine and instantly fit. The swoop my stomach swooped was wild. Shit straight out of a roller coaster.
“Well, this is new.” She tightened her grip on my hand as our fingers intertwined. This wasn’t a palm-to-palm handhold. No, it was intertwined, no space between our fingers, and heat spread from that connection all the way to my chest.
“Good new, or bad new?” I asked, the thud of my heart loud enough for the damn neighbor to hear it.
She studied me, her tongue wetting the side of her lips. “Undecided.”
“Mm, you know I like a challenge.” I pulled her toward me and stilled her hip with my other hand. She gasped, and her eyes widened behind her thick frames.
She stared at my mouth, and I likedthisattention from her. “Are you hungry?”
“Hm?” She blinked and met my gaze. “Am I what?”
“Hungry. For food.” I bit my cheek to not laugh. She was definitely thinking about something besides food, and fuck, I loved it. Becoming addicted to Ivy was easy as breathing, but learning all these new parts of her? Dangerous.
“Oh. Yeah.” She exhaled and awkwardly laughed. “Might as well get thisdateover with.”
15
IVY
Fact: anticipation was physiologically the same as feeling nervous. Both exuded the fluttering, butterfly effect where you didn’t really know what you were dealing with.
Like right now.
Callum opened the door to his car for me, resting his hand on my lower back with a slight curl to his fingers. Was that… possessiveness? Or was I reading into it? Probably that.
But he said date.
I was a mess.
Discombobulated. If I was on the field, I’d score a goal on the wrong side. If someone plopped me down in our hometown, I’d get lost. That was how off-kilter I felt.
“You alright over there, Ivy Lee?’
“I’m something,” I said, exasperated. The summer air clung to my skin, coating my body in a light sweat. August humidity would be the death of me one day. Yeah, think about moisture and weather, that was a cool move. Your body might be imploding, but you were thinking abouthumidity.
No wonder I was single.
Callum winked at me as he started the car and headed onto the main road. He gripped the wheel with his left hand, his right resting on the console between us. His fingers dangled over the side, an inch from my bare kneecap. I wanted him to hit a bump and graze the skin there, but why?
Why was I having these thoughts about Callum, and why was he having them for me? We’d never crossed that line all those years. He wasn’t anywhere near my type, nor I his.
Plus.
We were just getting back to being friends. Yeah. I should focus on that. Not the way he stared at me or called this a date or said this dress made him want to eat me. Shit. I was blushing. I’d watched him flirt and hook up for years, never daring to imagine what it would feel like if it were me. Just the thought of it had me breaking out in sweat. He was so experienced where I wasn’t. He never dated anyone more than a week or two, so this attraction would probably settle down. We’d just reconnected, so the thought of having this end in a week or two had me breathing faster. He said I looked good enough to eat! Those words! I stared at his mouth, his full lips quirked on the side, and I swallowed.
