She stiffened. What was he about to say? That he’d reached out to her in the past? When? “I was following our usual script,” she said.
“What script?”
What script? The unwritten script they’d been following their entire lives. “We screw. We part ways. That’s the script.”
“Not like that. That’s not our script.”
Her eyes narrowed. Now she understood. “Because you always leave. Not me.” They’d fall asleep together after multiple orgasms, and he’d sneak out while she slept. Or sometimes, pretended to sleep. She nodded when he looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, I initiate, and you terminate. You’re right,that’sour script.” She pivoted and walked to her table, placing the flowers there, trying not to care when the petals smooshed against the hard surface. “Sorry to fuck up the order of things. I adapted the rules to suit our hometown playing field, if you know what I mean.”
“There were never any rules.”
“Guidelines, then. Patterns. You love those, don’t you?” She shrugged, hoping she looked lighthearted. “I can see where you might have misconstrued my bolting, but trust me, I was fine. No trauma. I liked every second of sex we had.” She folded her arms together, trying to affect some cool. “Gawd, now you’ve made this all weird.”
He stared at her, and a deep rumble filled the room. It took her a second to realize it was coming from him. He bent over double and grasped his knees, his breath gasping as he laughed. And laughed. Each belly-chuckling laugh made her face turn hot.
She hadn’t heard him laugh like that in... well, forever. She drifted closer, each peal wrapping around her heart. “I don’t see what’s so funny—” But that only set him off again.
Finally he subsided, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. He shook his head, a heartbreaking smile still on his face. It lacked cynicism or icy control. It was young and boyish and happy. “Jesus Christ, Livvy. When has this not been weird?”
Despite herself, a smile tugged at her own lips. “Touché.” She tried to sober. “I should close up. You want to reestablish our usual roles? You can leave now.”
She turned away to her table, waiting to hear his footsteps, but they didn’t come. Instead, she counted each breath he took in the near silent room. “I...”
“What?” she snapped, when he trailed off.
“I don’t want to leave.”
He means now, so quit that little wriggle of happiness in your heart.He’d leave her eventually. “Is that right?”
“I want to stay.” He said the words quietly, and then repeated them louder. “I want to stay here with you.”
She picked up a pen and put it down again. “What do you want to talk about?”
A long silence stretched out. “Anything. Whatever you want.”
She glanced over her shoulder. No clear objective? No agenda? That was unlike him.
She’d vowed not to see him again, ever, not more than five seconds ago. But then he said, “Please,” and she wavered.
She couldn’t detect any manipulation or ulterior motive in his gaze. Earnestness. Caution. Maybe a touch of confusion, as if he didn’t fully understand himself.
As someone who felt perpetually confused, that was enormously endearing. “Anything?”
“Anything.”
A blank check to discuss whatever she wanted with him? After years of biting her tongue around him, he couldn’t have offered her a more seductive offer. Well, maybe if he’d paired it with his beautiful penis, but it was still pretty damn seductive nonetheless.
The weak-willed part of her that could neverdeny him blinked awake, and she nodded to the chair. She hated herself for giving in. She wasn’t capable of not giving in.
Argh.
“Take off your shirt.”
“Take off my... why?”
Because I really, really like how you look without your shirt.
“I told you. You want to talk to me, you have to get a tattoo.”
