“Don’t flatter yourself, I tolerate you just fine.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Can’t form a sentence when he’s this thrown for a loop, but then a clear flash of rejection scrunches her nose, and she shakes her head.
“Forget it. I don’t know why I said that. I think maybe I’m trying to protect myself.”
“By sleeping with me?”
She snorts. “It doesn’t make sense when you say it out loud.”
She looks so lost right now and even though he’s got emotional whiplash at the moment, he tries to find a reply that won’t make it all worse. “You don’t have to protect yourself from me. I know you think that I cheated on—”
“Don’t. I don’t want to talk about that right now. It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. Hell, it’s not like I’m in the best position to judge anyone.”
“But you don’t believe me, do you? When I say it didn’t happen that way?”
She tilts her head. “Not really. Does that bother you?”
“Little bit.”
He wants to spill the whole terrible story of his failed engagement, but she just keeps talking, and she specifically said she didn’t want to hear anything about that part of his life right now, so he shuts the hell up before he says something stupid.
“I’ve talked to you more in the last week than I’ve talked to anyone…pretty much ever. More than my therapist. More than my second husband and hebeggedme to open up to him. When I said I was an over-sharer, that wasn’t entirely true. I used to be. I’m not anymore. This isn’t something I planned on and it’s kinda throwing me to be honest.”
“We can stop. Don’t have to trade stories anymore.”
“That’s just it, I don’t actually want to stop, and that’s a little scary, too, ‘cause I usually can’t even start. Unless you don’t want to anymore, then I get it. I’m not trying to force you to talk to me, too. This’ll all be over soon anyway.”
“I’m still in. I’ve got another one ready if you want it?”
She nods, curling her legs up on the sofa while he plays with a cracker between his fingers, much like she fiddled with that can of food in the kitchen.
“This right here is why my life is in shambles. A beautiful woman wants to sleep with me and I automatically think it’s a joke. I’m socially fucked, I don’t trust easily, and I’ve got a grand total of two notches in my bedpost. Even that first one wasn’t real. I mean, she wasreal,it wasn’t an imaginary lay. What I mean is…” he pauses, a brief flicker of horror crossing his facewhen he realizes what the fuck he’s actually confessing to. “You know what? Gonna stop now. I’ve said enough.”
The tender way she watches him is a surprise after he admitted to being such a loser. She should be scoffing in disgust and ready to get away from him now, but those parted pink lips only hold a gentle, cautious smile. “I’m still stuck on that first part where you called me beautiful.”
He ducks his head. “Of course you are.”
The thickness in the air between them starts to break, and their laughter shyly mingles together as they trade tentative glances.
“Wow. We’re both disasters,” she says.
“Not wrong about that.”
“I think you’re beautiful, too.”
He rolls his eyes. “I think you mean devastatingly handsome.”
“Ah, there we go, I was waiting for something to come out of your mouth that would break this temporary spell of slight affection.”
“Slight affection? Well damn, call me whatever you want, sweetheart, because that’s a win in my book.”
She fixes him with a stare that feels equal parts hopeful and searching, like she’s trying to see past the false confidence he’s trying desperately to master. “Sorry, I threw myself at you. Not my finest moment. Just want to say that again, for the record.”
“No worries. Happens all the time. I’m used to it.”
“Oh, really? Okay. Good to know.” Her smile only gets wider at his joke before she veers their conversation into something more practical. “How are your fingers? Still hurting?”
He holds them up, chapped and sore but intact, wiggling them as proof. “They still work. Not as bad as it could be. They’re healing now that it’s warm. Yours?”
