The uncertainty on her face flickers for just a second before a huge smile overtakes her features, and she nods her head three times, these huge motions that show how emphatically she means it.
The relief from her permission alone floods me and thankfully she catches me as I lunge in to grab her. Her arms wrap around my back the same instant mine envelop her, absorbing her small frame in my larger one. My head tucks into her neck, buried in her hair, and I suck in my first deep breath I’ve been able to take since she left. My lungs are finally working again, my vital organs complying with basic functions now that I’m whole again.
Her scent floods my nose as I inhale, and she even smells different.
Damn, she smells good.Sweet. Something floral maybe?Did she always smell like this?
I’m embarrassed to say I think a groan leaves my mouth as I soak in the rightness of the moment, and I extend to my full height, lifting her off her feet, holding her close to me, savoring the contact, the proximity.
Her thin arms are still holding onto me for all she’s worth, but I think she might be trembling, and I realize this might be weird, with so much unsaid between us. I lower back down to gently place her feet back on the ground, and pull back from her, clearing my throat.
“Sorry,” I say.
She looks back at the concrete again, shaking her head rapidly, rejecting my apology, her hair covering her face so I can’t see what’s in her eyes.
“You’re gonna have to give me your new assistant’s number.”
That’s about the last thing I expected to be the first thing out of her mouth.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, I really gotta tell her to stop letting you listen to emo while you’re away from home, kid.”
My head falls back, a laugh tumbling out, and my arms wrap around my stomach. Leave it to her to bring me back to earth when I started to stray there.
“I’ll connect you guys,” I say jovially, and I kinda mean it. I bet Gem would have some good input for Shirley.
She looks between me and the door pointedly, kinda awkwardly.
“Uh…can I come in?” I ask. “I didn’t wanna just use my key,” I trail off, realizing that sounded kinda shitty, seeing as to how she was sort of forced to give me hers back.
“Thanks for that.” Her words are clipped and less warm than usual, but I think we can all agree I deserve some aloofness, so no hard feelings from me on that.
I follow her inside, watching her movements as she turns on the lights on the wall inside the entryway. The door closes behind me and we make our way to her…shall we call it quaint kitchen, where she turns around to face me next to the counter where her two barstools are.
Is that her dining room?I thought I remembered this place being bigger?
I twist from side to side, doing a rapid scan of her townhouse, and it’s definitely smaller than I remember.
She makes a noise, not quite clearing her throat, but it calls my attention back to her just the same. Not sure where to start, I throw something out there.
“I was worried you, uh, wouldn’t be coming back here tonight. Maybe you’d be going to his house or whatever.” My booted foot kicks at the vinyl flooring, embarrassed at the implicit admission that the thought bothered me.
Her eyes cut right through my bullshit, lasering to the real me before she answers me in a matter-of-fact tone. “He normally stays with me, actually, but he’s having a guys’ night tonight.”
That knot in my stomach? It’s now a stone, dropping all the way down through my intestines. It feels like it might actually come through the other side, and I mentally map a route to her bathroom in case of emergency.
“Oh.”
The silence is too awkward even for me to break, but I’m still not sure how to just launch into an apology. Maybe I shoulda been working that out the three hours I sat my ass outside her door, but you live, you learn, right?
“You out with Alex today?” I try again.
“I was at work, Aaron. Something us plebeians have to do so we can afford to eat and watch Netflix with a roof over our heads and the heat on in the winter.”
I ignore her sarcastic barb, letting her get one in against me, as I continue pushing for some sort of happy place where we can find conversation again. “I didn’t know you got another job!” My cheer sounds a little forced to my own ears, so I work harder at sounding natural. “What are you doing now?”
Those golden brown eyes dart to the corner of the room, where her computer desk is, and she bites on her lower lip for a second, leaving that full upper one on display.
