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“I noticed,” I said dryly.
With a quiet laugh, she picked up the plate, that blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, then started toward the front door. Curiously, I watched her. With her hand on the doorknob, she glanced at me over her shoulder.
“You better come sit and eat cake with me,” she said in a hushed tone. Her eyes were glowing as she stared at me, and it knocked the breath clean from my lungs.
I nodded, my voice a little rough as I answered. “Yeah. Of course.”
Could she hear the way my heart hammered in my chest? It seemed impossible that she couldn’t.
Harlow smiled, then went outside. I rubbed the back of my neck, then grabbed my cake and wondered for the hundredth time what the hell I’d done.
Chapter 25
Harlow
Ian took a few moments to join me, and I was glad. The sheer overwhelming fantasy of all of this made my head spin. The air had a sharp bite to it, and I let the blanket go slack around my shoulders so the cold might keep my senses sharp. Keep me from sliding headfirst into the impossibly tender, heart-rending atmosphere he’d conjured out of thin air.
Next to me on the railing, the sugary-sweet smell of chocolate reached my nose, and I glanced down at it, trying to decide whether I was willing to forgo the blanket in order to take a bite. At the sound of a door opening and closing gently, I sucked in a quiet breath.
Inside my chest waged a mighty battle.
One part of me—the rational thinker, the logical, sensible side of my brain—damn well knew that this wasn’t reality. He was giving me a gift, thoughtful and attentive to a degree that managed to make my heart stop. The gift was that he remembered. The gift was in feeling seen. That the things that mattered to me mattered to him.
It was the kind of gift a best friend gives you. There was no requirement that attraction or love or Thoughts or Feelings had to be attached. Gifts like this one came from a deep, intrinsic knowing of who the recipient was, and what would speak loudest to their heart.
It shouldn’t have been such a struggle, but it was.
Because the second part of me, louder and less rational, that felt starved for this kind of gesture, wanted to sink into it like a hot bubble bath. Let the warmth seep into my skin and muscles, allowing the sheer luxuriousness of the evening to wash away the long-neglected side of me.
The second part of me wanted to push the boundaries and see what lay on the other side. What a mighty battle it was.
The battle came in the form of a question, really. Was this romance? The kind of wooing that came on the pages of a book, crafted from the eager imagination of someone typing away on a computer? Or was it steady, faithful love, packaged neatly as a friendship?
As he came to stand by me, I couldn’t deny just how badly I was craving the first. It had been so long. The way he held me at the skating rink, pressed tight against that wall, different from the dark hallway, was the lighting of an unseen fuse. It was only a matter of time before something between us imploded.
And with the sweet smell of the cake, the warmth of the blanket, and the solid presence of him as he eased against the porch railing beside me, I made a quick gut decision.
The rational, logical side of me would stay silent, and I would let the fantasy play out. If the moment felt right, I’d push.
His gaze weighed heavy on the side of my face, but I kept my eyes out on the dark sky and the spindly trees that stretched as far as I could see.
“You haven’t had your cake yet.”
I smiled. “I was trying to decide whether letting go of the blanket was worth it.”
Ian nodded, then took his fork and speared a bite from his own plate, holding it up toward me. “Here.”
“Giving me your cake? That might be overkill in the perfect birthday situation we have going here.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Does that mean you don’t want it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” My chin rose in a beckoning gesture. “I definitely want it.”
Good Lord, the subtext had my face flaming. But I opened my mouth and leaned forward, allowing my gaze to rest on his while I closed my lips around the perfectly soft, fluffy, chocolatey cake.
Heavy, prolonged eye contact didn’t last long, though, because it was physically impossible to keep my eyes open when all that sugary goodness hit my tongue. My eyelids fluttered shut. The kind of flutter that happens in very specific circumstances.
When you slide into a hot tub with aching muscles.
