“What are you worried about, exactly?” He sounded exhausted.
Lilah stopped pacing abruptly. “That people will know. About us.”
He rubbed his hand over his face. “I’m sure they already do. The ones we work with, anyway.”
“What? Really? You think?” Her voice got higher and higher pitched with each question.
“Probably. We’re in each other’s trailers all the time. I don’t think it’s that hard to put it together. Plus, you’re always undressing me with your eyes.”
She cast a sharp glance at him. He was grinning up at her mischievously, obviously trying to defuse the situation. How was he so fucking calm about this? She’d always had a hard time understanding people like him, the perpetually unruffled, who inspired envy and frustration in her in equal measure.
To be fair, that type never seemed to know what to do with her, either, other than inform her she was being neurotic or overreacting or thinking too much—as if she didn’t already know. Even his hangovers seemed to hit him differently, making him chill and cuddly, whereas she currently felt like her skin had been removed, the volume and brightness of the world turned all the way up.
She flopped back onto the bed next to him, unable to tell whether she was annoyed or grateful that he didn’t move to touch her again. She closed her eyes and dug the heels of her hands into them, trying to fight off the swirling visions of the two of them, wasted and sugar-high, cackling like idiots at the bar, Shane sucking on her neck in the bathroom, the ominous buzz of a tattoo machine.
Another dire thought settled over her. The possibility that they hadn’t just been sloppy in front of their co-workers—they’d been sloppy in public. All it would take was one picture. Then the constant, insistent drone of attention she’d just barely learned to live with would amplify into a roar, swallowing her whole.
Lilah propped herself on her elbow, leaning over to inspectShane’s hip again. “How soon do you think we can get them removed? Probably not until they’re healed, right? Do you know how long that takes?”
His amusement faded. “You want to get them removed?”
“Youdon’t?” she asked, eyes widening.
He looked away. “I didn’t say that.”
“Why wouldn’t we get them removed?” She knew her voice was going all shrill again, in the way her worst high school boyfriend had told her made his dick feel like it was shriveling back up inside his body.
He shrugged, still unable to meet her eyes, his gaze drifting to her own exposed hip. “I dunno. I mean…a couples tattoo isn’t exactly the end of the world, right?” He reached out to stroke her thigh, and she jerked away.
“We’re not a couple,” she snapped, and it was like he turned to stone before her eyes.
It was only supposed to be one time.
But one time had turned into a dozen had turned into a hundred, and against her better judgment, she’d let things carry on way past their expiration date. It was just so easy.Hewas so easy.
Not in the sense that it was easy to get him naked, which, yes, there was that. But they had the same unpredictable schedule, he was laid-back and sweet, and, most important, she could trust him. He was the only person in her life who understood what she was going through, because he was going through it, too: the surreal, thrilling, terrifying, one-in-a-million experience of going from nobody to capital-S Somebody practically overnight.
After the year they’d both had, easy was all she could handle. And there were more than enough reasons why being in an actual relationship with him would be really fucking hard.
Maybe they’d blurred the lines by spending the night as oftenas they did, but that was just about logistics: they left work late, started early, and didn’t live particularly close to each other. They neverslepttogether without sleeping together, though, a boundary Lilah had been careful to keep intact.
Until last night.
Looking down at his stricken expression, she was hit by a wave of something worse than nausea. Something closer to disgust, crested with despair. She hurt all over, inside and out, exhausted and weak and embarrassed enough that her most self-destructive impulses had wrestled free of their chains and clawed their way to the surface. She wanted to hurt him, too. To punish him for the unforgivable crimes of caring about her, of wanting more from her, of assuming he knew her.
“What do you think this is, exactly?” Her voice already didn’t sound like her own, caustic and sharp, a warning to herself that she was about five seconds away from saying something she’d deeply regret.
“I don’t—” He caught himself just in time, but she pressed on, unable to stop herself.
“Have I ever said anything to make you believe I would want a fuckingcouples tattoowith you?”
“No, but—”
“But what?” She wasn’t sure when she’d gotten to her feet, but she was standing again, arms crossed defensively, shifting her weight like she was seconds away from bolting out the door of her own damn bedroom. “You want to be myboyfriendnow? Is that it?”
He met her gaze, his voice frustratingly calm. “Not when you’re acting like this, I don’t.”
She lifted her chin. “And how am I acting?”
