Don’t tell me we’re only friends when I can read between the lines just fine.
Don’t tell me it was a mistake to speak these words out loud.
“You’re talking a lot about me and not at all about you,” he begins carefully.
She steps away, her back colliding with the counter, and arms crossing in a defensive barrier. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Feels like you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t wanna lose you,” Wade whispers. “It would mean something if we did that. Of course it would. Things would change.”
Some part of her relaxes a fraction at knowing he’s just as afraid they’ll drift apart.
“I had a lotta time to think while we were apart,” he continues. “I used it all to think about you. What I’d do if I ever got the chance? What I’d say. I could never be with you only because you think I need the comfort of a warm body. That’s not what we are to each other, Kara. You’re so much more than that.”
She also had plenty of time to think. It gave her clarity on her feelings, she’s just painfully unskilled at acting on them. Her voice cracks when she replies, and she winces at the sound. “I’m sorry. I hate that I made you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.” He strokes a hand down her opposite cheek, stopping at her jaw to encourage her to face him. “Come here.”
She’s conditioned to wait for the next hit as much as he is. Stepping forward while risking the fallout may be one of her hardest choices, but she wants nothing else except him. Has dreamed of nothing else for longer than they’ve been apart.
Her arms weave around his neck as she breathes him in, shuddering when he squeezes her tight to bury his face in thecurve of her shoulder in the first full hug they’ve shared in years. It feels so much different than she imagined becausetheyare different. She takes a moment to feel the warmth of his body enveloping her and enjoy what she feared she may never feel again.
“Are you still hungry?” His question comes out throaty and chaffed.
“Starving.”
He swallows hard and meets her stare with an intensity that flushes her cheeks. She’s having a hard time reading him and she tilts her head, her brows knitting together as if she could puzzle out the fine print etched somewhere into his skin.
They have never been the type for labels other than best friend. Today, there is a shift that she feels deep in her bones, even if neither of them are ready to do anything about it yet.
* * *
“Why do you sleep with your ass out?”
Kara pauses with a fake scowl. “Oh, so we’re going right into the important questions?”
He shrugs. “Just curious. Got all the covers around you last night. Didn’t leave me but a square foot of blanket, except your whole ass was out.”
“Are you offended by my ass?”
“What? No. Pfft. No.”
“I get hot, but the rest of me is always cold.” She’s made sure to position herself away from him, but apparently, he notices far more than he’s let on. “Try it sometime. It’s the best way to sleep. The ass behaves like a temperature regulator.”
They’re on the bed again with food spread out before them like a lazy Sunday brunch. Close as they can get without beingin each other’s laps, trading lines that feel like foreplay. For two people who seem to have pumped the brakes on any progress in their relationship, it certainly feels like the dam has been broken instead.
‘Ask me anything,’she told him, unprepared for that first silly question.
“Your turn. Ask me something,” he grunts, shoving a cheese cube in his mouth.
“Favorite position?”
His eyes go wide. “That’s what this is now? Sex questions?”
“You wanna talk about favorite colors or go right for the good stuff?”
