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“So why do you think we keep forgetting how things are supposed to be between us?”
She bites her lip. “I don’t know. I’ve been able to maintain friendships with other men after getting physical. Once the lines were drawn, I never even thought about crossing them again. But with you? All aboard the struggle bus.”
There’s a war happening inside my brain. The stupid, jealous-fuck side is cracking his knuckles at the mention of these other men. While the vain asshole who shares rent up there is preening over the fact that Lara struggles to control herself with me, after the rest of the unworthy guys she’s been with don’t even register.
Both of those parts of my psyche are dicks, but I haven’t found a way to evict either one. Not sure how I live with them, but somehow I manage.
As for Lara… “I’ll tell you what my problem is. Those weeks we had… they were fucking hot.”
She gives up a quiet laugh and leans into the wall. “So hot.”
“Sauna hot.”
Her lips twist. “Old-Tumblr hot.”
I groan a little at the memory of watching her dirty feed one night and move closer. “Inferno hot.”
“Fresh-from-the-volcano hot.” Her voice has gone a little breathy, and I’m about ninety percent sure her thighs just shifted together.
Rubbing my hand over my mouth and jaw, I remind myself I’ve got a point to make, and it’s not that I can still read this woman’s body like the best kind of dirty book.
“Lara, the way I remember those weeks… they were hotter than the surface of the sun.” I’m right in front of her now, close enough that even in the dim lighting I can see her searching my eyes. “But maybe the reason we’re remembering it like that is because, at the time, we didn’t have anything else to compare it to.”
She blinks and looks away. “Because it was our first time.”
I shove my hands in my pockets so I don’t reach out to touch her. “It was new. All of it.”
New and fucking miraculous. It takes everything I have not to think of all the ways I got this woman to come for me… Fine. I’m still thinking about them.
A lot.
Her nod is slow, grudgingly given.
And I get it. Those weeks are a time that I’ve protected too. They meant something. They meant everything. A part of me doesn’t want to take a closer look at them because I like how they fit into my memories.
But if holding so tight to our past is getting in the way of our future as friends, I’m willing to loosen my grip some. “Our lives were changing at lightning speed back then. High school was ending. You were heading to college. I was hoping to play. There was a lot of uncertainty.” Around everything except us. Or that’s how I felt anyway.
“Emotions were running hot,” she adds.
“Exactly. And then, before there was a chance for things to maybe level out some, we got cut off.”
“We didn’t have the perspective to judge what was happening.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” It’s reasonable. Makes sense. Shouldn’t bother me, but fuck if it doesn’t.
“We were”— Lara’s head cocks to one side, her lips curving in a way that Big Ben digs a lot —“inexperienced.”
I nod, trying hard not to think about that first time. The feel of her body giving way. Taking me in. Tight and snug around me.
Shit.
“Right.”
She bites her lip, eyes tracking over me. “But not anymore.”
“Umm.” That instinct I’ve learned to live by on the ice is tapping its stick.
And now she’s nodding, taking a step in my direction. “We’d have the perspective to judge now.”
