And he was right.
She hadn’t drawn it in, and he hadn’t taken it. In fact he was further away now from taking it than he had been at the beginning. But still, she couldn’t let that stand. It now felt like an imperative not to. Like something really big and breath stealing depended on it. “Handshaking isn’t a prerequisite for having a relationship and kids.”
“Maybe not. But other things like it are. Being touchy-feely and tender is.”
“Some women don’t like that either, though.”
“Doyounot like it?”
“Depends,” she said, which was the truth.
Though of course that wasn’t enough.
“Tell me what it depends on.”
“If I trust the person. If I like them. If I can be myself with them. If they want to touch me. All of those things go a long way to making what feels like an immutable characteristic within me into something more situational.”
Stop now, she thought.That sounded too much like you’re trying to help him understand something he doesn’t need to.Only it felt hard to, when he wouldn’t.
“But how do you—” he started to say, then cut himself off, frustrated.
She had to finish it for him. She couldn’t just let that be it.
“What? Figure out if it is just the way you are?”
“Yes. Yes, all right, yes, let’s say that.”
“Well, you could start by using that imagination I know you have.”
“To do what, exactly? What could I possibly dream up that would help?”
“The idea of a woman you trust. A woman you like. And then just picture her telling you that she wants you. That she can’t stand another second of needing you. That all she thinks about is how good it would feel to have your arms around her. Do you feel differently then?” she asked, and knew, immediately, that she’d gone too far somehow. The words came out all weird and big. Full of feeling she hadn’t intended to force into them. By the time she got to the end of the last sentence she was practically yelling them at him.
It was no wonder the air seemed to ring once they were out.
Or that he looked assaulted in the silence that followed.
A second ago you were joking about butts, she thought. But there was no going back now. She’d said something accidentally deeply emotional to Caleb Miller, and all that remained after that was the fallout. Him all frozen, eyes as wild as they’d been at reception.
Then finally, finally.
“Okay, I’m going to sleep in the tub now,” he said, so fast it came out as one word. And after it was out, he made good on that. He turned and marched straight for the bathroom. Didn’t even pause to grab something from his suitcase.
Though it wasn’t as if she could imagine him having much in it.
It was practically a backpack. And most likely nearly empty. Just a rock in there, for a punishing pillow. Maybea second shirt, identical to the first. A spare pair of underpants, if he even allowed himself the luxury of them.Probably he rides those jeans bareback, she found herself thinking, and hated the fact that she had.
First she had gotten all personal and weird with him.
Now she was thinking of him naked underneath his clothes.
Really, it was no wonder he’d stormed off. That he was probably in the bathroom now, trying to climb out of the nearest window. Even though they were ten floors up, and overlooking nothing but cement.You’ll hear screams in a second, courtesy of him splattering himself on the sidewalk, she told herself.
And that felt so right she almost went and knocked.
Don’t do it, she imagined herself saying. About five seconds before the door suddenly whipped open. Violently, it seemed to her—and he looked that way, too. For a moment he just stood there in the doorway, seething. Furious with her, and definitely about to show it. She almost asked him not to murder her, for the crime of making him have a feeling.
It even seemed like he actually might, when he abruptly strode forward.
