“I’m not! It’s just… it’s weird, you know?”
“Weird how?”
“Him helping me shower and change and do all these things. It’s… I don’t get a lot of privacy.”
Jackson frowned. “Is this about jerking off?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Okay,” Jackson said with a laugh.
“It’s just really uncomfortable being around him all the time. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“What do you mean, uncomfortable?”
“I almost kissed him last night,” I admitted.
Jackson’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
I shrugged. “It’s not, like, a big deal. Is it?”
A moment passed before he snorted and started to laugh and shake his head. “Sounds like you’ve been reading romance novels in your spare time. Or watching rom-coms. Ooh, you didn’t watch that new one without me, did you?”
“Jackson, focus.”
“No, really. You had me going there for a second. You really did.” I sighed in defeat, and Jackson stopped laughing and looked at me curiously. “Wait, are you serious?”
“I am.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.” A beat passed before I spoke again. “Now what?”
Jackson hesitated. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“I want to kiss him,” I said without hesitation.
“Does he want to kiss you?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. It’s not like we’ve talked about it.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Well, maybe you should talk about it.” An alarm went off on his phone and Jackson stood. “That’s the end of my lunch break. I’ve got to run. But don’t worry too much. If it happens, it happens, right? If you get all up in your head about it, you’re just going to overthink things.”
“Yeah,” I said, not at all convinced. “Thanks for talking it over with me.”
“Anytime, sweetheart.” He blew me a kiss and winked as he headed out the door.
I stewed over our conversation for the rest of the day, thinking again and again about the previous night, the near-miss, andhow I was feeling about it. By the time Micah was home, I’d resolved to talk to him about it.
I chickened out.
As we had dinner and watched TV, I couldn’t bring myself to speak up. What was I going to say? “Hey, let’s kiss?” It sounded ridiculous. After the show ended, I sighed and pushed myself to standing. “I think it’s bedtime for me.”
Micah nodded and stood. “Let’s get you in bed then. Lead the way.”
I made my way down the hallway and Micah stood outside the door while I changed. Once I was ready for bed, he came in and offered his shoulder for me to lean on so I could climb into my needlessly tall bed. If I’d learned anything from this situation, it was that my bed didn’t need to be so goddamned tall.
When I was in, blanket over my lap, he hesitated for a second. “All set?”
