“Obviously, I think you’re good looking.” Wow. That was pretty tame, but I still had the sudden urge to fan myself.
I wanted to get a gigantic banner or maybe a billboard that said, Obviously I think you’re good looking. Maybe put it on my tombstone. No, nothing from this conversation could have that space. Him saying I love you for the first time was already going there. I love you, you idiot. Was there a way to project the words he just said into space?
See, all these thoughts? Totally why he didn’t compliment me all the time.
Maybe I could get a tombstone with all of it. The I love you, the obviously you’re good looking, and the I’m always attracted and annoyed by you. Whoever engraved tombstones could use a small font. It would probably be expensive as hell, but I’d be dead, so it was someone else’s problem. Why am I thinking about death? I’m enjoying being alive too much for that.
Like always when overwhelmed or unsure or pretty much anything really, I turned to humor. “Oh, are you only in this thing for my looks?” I asked.
“Yep,” my boo replied without skipping a beat. “You found me out.”
There was a pause. “I’m trying to feel used right now,” I admitted. “But I actually feel flattered.” I was a trophy wife! Or whatever.
“And I like your legs.” Luke’s voice dropped a couple octaves, and there was less purr but more heat. Oh my. Now we’re talking.
“Okay, now we’re talking,” I repeated my thoughts because for once I didn’t have anything else too add.
“And your hands.” Holy-
“Uh, keep going.”
Felt a little silly to undress or something even though we were trying to have an intimate moment, but the room suddenly got warmer as Luke listed the things he liked about me. I took my shirt off experimentally, running a hand over my chest. That felt easier than taking off my shorts for a first step and it wasn’t like I could take off my pants and leave my shirt on because that would be weird.
“Remember that time your dad caught us?” Luke asked and everything screeched to a halt.
I moved my hand away from my body like I’d been burned and shuddered. “Oh, now this.This was the only thing missing from our misadventures in sexy times, bringing up my dad.” He lured me into a false sense of sexy security and then dropped the ultimate awkward bomb. How dare he? We were supposed to love each other!
“Look, I’m doing a thing here,” Luke tried to explain. “I can’t, like, say oh, this is what you’re doing to me right now, you put your hand on my hand or something. I don’t have that much imagination, so I’m going from memory.”
Yeah, he kind of proved his point by saying, you put my hand on your hand, that wasn’t very inventive. He could have picked literally any two body parts instead of the same one.
Still. There were so many questions. Like this one, “You’re doing a thing and the memory of my dad is what you chose?” Also why. And why. And why. And just to be different, why.
“No, just, you were gonna figure out it was that time anyway, it was gonna get brought up, so I’m just putting it out there first.”
“So the point wasn’t my dad?” Small mercies.
“That would be weird.”
I rolled my eyes. Then I remembered he couldn’t see me rolling my eyes, which took a lot of the fun out of it. “I’m rolling my eyes,” I told him. Yeah, this was already weird anyway. “This has been super normal so far,” I said sarcastically.
“Okay,” he continued where he left off, ignoring me. “I’d just played a game.”
I considered protesting but by some miracle managed not to. “Yeah, you were sweaty and dirty then too, but it was really working for me.” I realized which memory he was talking about. I could picture Luke, flushed from activity, baseball uniform fitting him snuggly, grass stains and dirt making it worn. The way he smelled—hot and manly and alive.
“And we were in my car and we needed to go inside,” Luke continued. “But we didn’t because we were too busy getting as close together as possible and I didn’t want to let you go for even a moment. It was broad daylight, and it wasn’t the best time to speed things up, but we didn’t want to slow down. You were on top of me—"
“And we were in the car so I couldn’t flail too much,” I added helpfully, trying to participate but not really having the hang of it yet. It was a little annoying Luke figured it out before me, but I was also grateful because one of us should have some idea of what was happening.
“Already said where we were.” His voice was warm though.
“Just, I was at my most dashing and suave,” I argued.
“And it was hot.”
“Temperature wise?” I wondered. Oh my god, it was like that saying, if you don’t have anything sexy to say, don’t say anything at all. … Was that how the saying went? Probably not. That would be a weird thing to say to kids and I remember people saying it to me when I was younger.
“Babe.” He sounded fond and judgmental, like he often did around me.
