Page 53 of Newly Tied

“I’m laughin’ at how stupid you’re bein’. Why on earth would you need moves with me? Just be you. That’s all I want.”

“But see, seduction is one thing, and you’re another.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It does, though. I can’t mess up and have you reconsider our friendship,” he said, climbing on the bed and lying down beside me. “That can’t happen.”

I rolled my head to the left so I could see him. “No matter what, we’ll still be friends.”

“Not if I break your heart.”

“And why would you do that?”

“You fall madly in love with me, and I meet someone else.”

“Is that what you’re really worried about?” I asked, knowing, of course, that the reverse was true. He was forgetting that, unlike anyone else I’d ever met in my life, I knew him better than myself. His brain had always made perfect sense to me.

“No,” he confessed, his voice cracking.

“What, then?”

“That you could do better.”

Here was the heart of the matter, and I needed to make myself clear. “Do you honestly think there’s anyone better for me than you?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if gathering himself, and then sighed deeply and opened them. “No. I’m the best thing for you.”

“I know that,” I said, slipping my hand around the side of his neck, staring into all that melting brown. “So why would I ever look away from you? Why would I ever need anyone else?”

“You’re the only one I think about,” he admitted, his voice hoarse and thick. “You’re the singular person I want to be around all the damn time. I can’t imagine it not being you lying here beside me from now on. But I just, I’ve never needed…anything from…” He stopped suddenly and pushed my hand off him, sitting up, ready to leave the bed. “Forget it. Let’s go get in the⁠—”

“No,” I warned him, and he froze, staring at me. “Lie down.”

Immediately, he settled back beside me, closer than before, his gaze locked with mine.

“First off, we never push our hands off each other. That’s your rule, remember?”

“Yeah, I—I wasn’t thinking.”

“Because why? Why weren’t you thinkin’?”

He inhaled deeply. “This is a lot, right? Us, I mean. Being like this.”

“It’s a lot of honesty. And not more than we normally feel, but so much more than we’ve ever had to put into words.”

“Yes. Oh God, yes.”

I smiled at him. “You sound relieved.”

“I…we met and I liked you right off, then we became us, Ross and McCabe, and it’s been so easy. So seamless. You fit into my life, beside me, like you’ve always been there, and there’s never been a need to put a name to us, to what we are, other than partners.”

“Yes.”

“But now suddenly, with this—and I want this,” he rushed out, to be certain I knew, “don’t question that—but we’re changed.”

“Yes, we are,” I agreed. “And so because of that, because it’s me, you need what?”

He looked confused. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”