“Butternut squash, mozzarella, spinach. Sound good?”
“Sounds amazing.”
For a few minutes, I watched him prepare the food, and we chatted. He was doing all these things to be sweet, and my pulse fluttered seeing how much care he had put into the dinner.
But his body was still tense, less open to me than before. I wasn’t sure if I should stroke his arm and kiss him until he relaxed or give him his space.
When we sat down at the dining table, the pizza hot on a rack between us, and I caught his eye. Kai was smiling at me, and there was a light shining in his expression that I had missed.
“This means a lot to me,” I said. “Thank you for making dinner.”
He nodded, and his face tightened, serious again. “Thanks for being patient. I’ve been letting my own crap get in the way of our thing, and I don’t want to do that.”
“It’s okay,” I encouraged. “It doesn’t feel like being patient. I just wish I were better at helping you work through this.” I took a slice of hot pizza and dropped it onto my plate. “I’m still learning how to support a boyfriend. And how to use Instagram, apparently.”
Kai chuckled. “I guess I’m still learning those things, too. River keeps telling me I can’t expect a relationship to develop along my rules and guidelines, no matter how important I think they are.”
I tilted my head to the side. That was pretty much exactly what River had said to me about Kai, actually, and it suddenly struck me that he might have been trying to push us toward each other a little more than I realized.
Not that I minded. It felt pretty good that Kai’s brother and his friends were invested, actually.
Or my friends.
Our friends, I corrected myself. Our friends cared about our relationship, and that was really nice to know.
When I lifted the pizza and took a bite, my eyes rolled back in my head. Savory, sweet flavors exploded across my tongue, and the warm cheese melted between my teeth.
“Wow,” Kai laughed. “You like it?”
“Oh my god, Kai,” I said, my mouth full of hot pizza. “This is the best pizza ever.”
“Good,” he said with a grin. “I thought you’d enjoy. I’ll make it for you again sometime.”
“Enjoy?” I took another bite. “If you hadn’t won me over yet, the pizza definitely would have done the trick. I’ll come back for this anytime.”
Kai laughed. “Good,” he said. “That’s the first part of me trying to make things up to you and get back to normal.”
I set the slice down. “Oh yeah? And what’s the second part?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kai
I pulledIzzy into my bedroom by both hands, then kissed him against the wall. After dinner and talking and making out on the couch, things felt almost normal again, but I still needed to show him I was getting over my mini-breakdown.
I needed to show Izzy, and I needed to show myself, too.
And tasting him between my lips and feeling his body twitch in my hands, that reminded me this was real. He was my boyfriend, and there was no reason to hide from that or feel ashamed.
I pulled his long-sleeved T-shirt over his head and tossed it aside. My room was tidy, the bed made right before he came over, but quickly, we messed it up by tossing our clothes everywhere and throwing the blankets aside as we fell to the firm mattress.
“Kai,” Izzy laughed warmly as he ran his hands up and down my back. “It’s nice to touch you again.”
I climbed on top of him, then kissed from his neck down to his chest. “Izzy.” I whispered his name.
Feeling him was like a drug, washing through my veins and taking away all the other worries. I was high on his scent and the heat of his body, and I wanted to lick every inch of him at once.
“Do you want to fuck me?” he asked sweetly. His hair was messed up, falling to the side, and his lips were already raw and puffy.
