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Thump. Thump. Thump.
“Ethan. Yes, like that! Yes! Yes! Yes! I’m coming so hard, baby!” My throat will definitely be sore tomorrow. “So hard. I’m coming. I’m coming. Yes! Yes! Yessssss!”
Falling backward on the bed, I say, “And the Oscar goes to…you think they heard?” I pick my head up off the bed to get a load of his reaction.
“The neighborhood heard,” he says, chuckling, his bright grin stretching from ear to ear. My heart keeps doing things it’s not supposed to at the sight of that smile.
“I’m sleeping in here tonight.”
“Okay.” His smile broadens. Ugh, be still my stupid heart.
“But you’re keeping your bottoms on.”
“Okay.”
“And your man parts on your side of the bed.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I say as I crawl into bed.
He turns the lamp off and the room descends into darkness, his features outlined by a dim nightlight. I tuck my hand under my face and watch him get into bed, his eyes steadfast on me. This isn’t the first time we’ve shared a bed. It’s the first time I’ve been genuinely nervous, though.
“Is it hard for you to see them together?”
He gets comfortable. Barely twelve inches separate us as we lay face to face. “No,” he answers without hesitation.
“And the baby?”
He shrugs. “I’m happy for them.”
Nothing in his demeanor tells me he’s dissembling. “Did she break your heart?”
I’m pressing. I know I am. Part of me hopes he says yes, that if I can torture myself enough for it to be really painful it will put an end to this ridiculous crush I have on him.
Slowly, he reaches over and tucks a loose strand of my hair behind my ear as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, as if he’s done it a million times. My breath hitches and my stomach feels weightless, suspended in the moment. I want to touch him too. I want so badly to reach over and touch him that I grip my pillow to stop myself.
His gaze lingers on my ear. “She didn’t.”
“But you were in love with her when it happened?”
His long lashes lower as he thinks it over. “At the time, I thought I was.”
“What do you mean?” I say, when what I really want to say is, Why did you love her? What made her special, and why didn’t she break your heart? A thousand questions are begging to be asked. I keep them all to myself.
His gaze moves between my eyes and mouth. “She was my first girlfriend…in hindsight it was more like puppy love. I was in awe of her. With her relentless drive to achieve her goal of turning pro and ranking.” In the pause, his unguarded eyes seek mine. “She didn’t break my heart. My brother did.”
“You guys didn’t talk at dinner.”
The hurt and frustration in his eyes is hard to miss. I send up a silent prayer for Jake to get his shit together and reach out to his brother.
“No,” he says with unmistakable longing in his voice. “When we were kids, I worshipped him. Remember when I told you how sick I was?”
All I can do is nod. The way he keeps playing with the loose ends of my hair puts me under a spell, quiets my mind and soothes the frayed edges of my emotions.
“I didn’t have any friends because I was always in and out of hospitals. My mother was always pulling me out of school. And because I couldn’t eat without getting sick, I was small for my age.”
Stop. Please stop, my mind keeps saying while my poor heart bleeds in silence. I can’t take much more of this. One more sad story and I’ll start to cry.
“By the time I started feeling better I was around eleven…Jake was fifteen so, yeah, I was eleven,” he repeats. “He was always popular. Always had friends over. I would follow them around. It used to annoy the shit out of him,” he adds with a small chuckle.
“They would party in the woods behind our home in Westchester. And I would follow and get him in trouble with my father. Eventually he got tired of getting busted and let me stay. After that, we were tight.”
“Until you brought Hope home for Christmas.”
His gaze moves to my lips. He looks lost in the memory. His mouth curves up on one side, the smile sad. “I should’ve seen it. He never acted that way with a woman before, and he went through a lot of them.”
“Hmm, what a shocker.” In understanding, he gives me a brief smile. “Why haven’t you dated anyone since then?”
The pause is heavy. As if we’ve reached a critical point in the conversation––and our friendship.
“I haven’t met anybody I want to spend my life with.” Life? Err, I said date. “I’ve dated. Nothing serious, though…remember Jane?”
Ugh, Jane. I knew it. I knew it. Rolling onto my back, I stare at the ceiling. Anything is more appealing that watching hearts appear in his eyes for Jane. “Yeah, I remember how you gushed and preened.”
