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“Boomer, please. You don’t have to eat them.”
Lara is hovering, closer than she’s been since she moved in, those big brown eyes a mix of disappointment and frustration as I force my teeth through the abomination in my mouth.
Maybe I should have taken Red up on her offer instead of taking a picture with her before heading back. But even as I think it, I know I wouldn’t have. I wasn’t interested in those girls on the path, no-strings distraction or not.
“S’good.” I’m nodding, trying to hide my grimace behind a grin as I chew and chew and chew— God help me —and chew. Lara lets out a huff and pushes past.
She’s still wearing those little PJs, thin enough that even without being soaked when she bends over to grab the trash out of its drawer, I have to close my eyes. Not that it does much good with my mind hyper-focused on her mile-long legs and that unconventional show of flexibility I walked in on. How her nipple was bunched so tight I couldn’t help but think about the feel of it pressed between my tongue and roof of my mouth. Or how having the length of her body against mine, even just for a second, was such a shock to the system, it took everything I had not to react like the last eight years haven’t happened at all and just pull her in the way I used to.
Jesus, don’t think about what it was like to hold her.
Except, I’m totally thinking about it…
Her back against the wall as I rocked between the legs around my hips…
Beneath me, staring up into my eyes, lips parted as I sank full-length into her snug, wet heat…
Atop my chest with her hand resting over my heart, lashes fanned shut against her cheeks as she slept…
Eject, eject, eject!
My eyes blast open, and I find Lara in front of me. She looks like the prettiest, most ridiculous drowned rat ever as she holds the bin in my face. “Spit.”
She made this recipe for me. She remembered that I loved it.
My lips pinch shut, and I dig deep, chewing like it’s my job. I’m not spitting her kindness into the trash. No way. I’m almost ready to risk the swallow, pretty sure we’re past the lacerated throat stage, when Lara grabs my face with her free hand. Our eyes lock. “Spit.”
I’ve seen that not-fucking-around look before. Been on the receiving end of it enough to know she’s serious. So I reluctantly do as asked and then watch as she takes the baking sheet with the other petrified puddles of wishes-they-were-pretzels-but-OMG-no-they-fucking-aren’t and dumps them as well.
Setting both aside, she leans against the counter beside me and wipes the back of her hand over her brow, smearing a bit of floury paste there instead of wiping it away.
Cute.
Messy.
Ahh, fuck it.
I grab a paper towel and run the corner under the tap. “Here, let me.”
Her eyes come up, and there’s a searching vulnerability in them, like maybe she’s looking for the guy she used to know or something— and it hits me square in the chest. For a heartbeat, I almost want to be him.
“Sorry about the kitchen. And your teeth,” she says quietly, inches separating us now instead of an entire room.
I shake my head, catching her chin in a light hold as I bring the towel to her face. “It was thoughtful. Sweet. And my teeth have taken a puck to them. They could have handled your pretzel.”
Probably.
She watches me as I wipe at her brow, then down the smooth skin of her cheek. Along the delicate line of her jaw and over to that spot beneath her ear that used to make her lose her mind when I kissed it.
Back in high school, I never really let myself look at her those first years. I wouldn’t risk seeing anything but the friend she was to me. Not while I was committed to someone else. But after prom, I finally let myself. And once I did, I couldn’t look away.
Day after day. Night after night, I got lost in the lines of her face. The slope of her nose. The smattering of freckles… these two right here, so close they’re almost touching. The fullness of her bottom lip and neat bow of her top. I memorized it all.
Over the years, I tried to forget. Failed. Found myself thinking about those two freckles and this little divot more often than I should have.
Seeing her now, really seeing her for the first time since she moved in, I can’t deny that she’s only gotten more beautiful. Her face is as hard to look away from now as it was then.
But I need to.
