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In fact, I’d emphatically not thought about him the other day when I snuck some alone time in the shower after everyone had left the house. So I was emphatically not worried about being alone with Ian before Sage was home from school.
Liar, a voice whispered in the back of my head.
Okay, fine, I was a little worried. That was an unfortunate side effect of The Thoughts. It gave me a little clarity on why Ian had done his own avoiding when we first moved in. There was always a lingering fear that something would change the dynamic of our relationship. But the worst possible outcome of that dynamic change was me losing him entirely.
The Thoughts needed to stay away. And if they did, then the fear would dissipate too.
Which was why I didn’t attempt to straighten my messy ponytail or worry that the ripped sleeves on my T-shirt showed the strappy edge to my light purple bra. He certainly wasn’t going to notice.
Had Ian ever thought Thoughts about someone? I found myself wondering. He didn’t date seriously in high school—even though female notice of him grew exponentially with the growth spurt he’d had in eighth grade and the time he’d spent in the weight room sophomore and junior year.
He’d gone on casual dates. I knew he made out with his fair share of girls later in high school, and even though he never admitted it, I was about eighty percent sure that he lost his V-card at seventeen to Constance McKenzie in the bed of his truck because I found a sleeping bag and some cheap battery-operated candles back there and gave him shit about it for months.
If he was thinking things, I never knew about them. But in all the years we’d spent apart, he must’ve had some sort of relationship. He was too good, too handsome not to.
Who was she? Some chic Londoner with impeccable style and a cute accent? She probably called him love or darling and had excellent time management skills and never would’ve gone three days testing the limits of a good dry shampoo.
My face must’ve betrayed my questions because he walked in the door and froze. “What?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You look serious. Or pissed off, I can’t tell.”
Black shirt today, and damn him, it looked really good. What asshole had the unmitigated gall to create the Henley? It wasn’t fair. It clung to shoulders and chests and arms and had those little buttons that showed just the tiniest glimpse of collarbone and chest that shouldn’t have been so appealing.
“I’m not pissed off,” I said absently, tearing my eyes away from the fucking buttons. “I’m just … thinking.”
“Ahh. Get some good work done today?”
Whenever he asked, the genuine interest was so clear in his eyes. It wasn’t a flippant how was your day? Yet paired with The Thoughts, and the lack of other people around us, and the black Henley, it was all too much.
“My hero has blond hair,” I blurted. “And gray eyes.”
Ian paused, tilting his head. “Okay. That’s good, right?”
“Yup. Super-hot. Everyone loves blond heroes.”
He did one of those laughs—a short exhale, just a quiet puff of amusement that wasn’t even really a full laugh. “Noted.”
My eyes slammed shut because I sounded insane. “What are you doing home so early? I didn’t expect you until after five.”
Ian scratched the edge of his jaw, then tugged one of the chairs away from the table so he could take a seat. “I wanted to talk to you about something before Sage got home,” he said.
Shit.
Dammit.
He knew about The Thoughts.
Frantically, I tried to remember if I’d left my computer open at any point, where he might’ve read my prompt.
“Okay,” I said quietly. “What about?”
This was serious. Ian could hardly look at me. He’d braced his forearms on the table, his hands clasped together. “You know the last thing I want to do is upset the routine we’ve got going here. I love having you and Sage at the house.”
My hands started trembling, so I kept them under the table. He saw. He definitely saw. Did he notice me staring at his happy trail like it was the actual happiest thing I’d seen in a long time?
And then, oh gawd and then I thought about some of the things I’d written. About his big fingers and the way they slid easily between my legs. Her legs, I corrected frantically in my head. Her legs. The fictional person who didn’t exist and wasn’t me, and it didn’t matter how easily fingers slid because of how turned on she was because she was not me.
