Page 10 of Memories of You

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just a headache.”

“Oh. I think I’ve got some ibuprofen. I should probablyoffer you that instead of the drink I was planning to suggest.”

“Actually, bourbon if you have it. Believe it or not,whiskey helps.”

“But when doesn’t it, really?”

He grins. “We always did think alike.”

I bring us both drinks and sit on the opposite end of thesofa, then shift around to get more comfortable. He pats his thighs.

I laugh, then put my bare feet in his lap, so that my backis against the arm rest. It’s comfortable and easy, more so than I would haveexpected after so many years. But we’ve sat like this a hundred thousand timesbefore, talking late into the night or watching television or just gossipingabout school.

I realize that he’s watching me, his eyes crinkling at thecorners.

“What?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says, “but I didn’trealize how much I missed you until I saw you.”

Happiness spreads through me like warm thick syrup. “Yeah,”I say. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Chapter Five

She’d been wearing sandals, and now her feet were bare inhis lap. They each had a glass of bourbon, and there was a full bottle on the coffeetable.

And Renly was very, very aware of the pressure of her heelson his thighs. He lifted his glass and took a sip, enjoying the burn as heswallowed. He felt the fire spread through him, and he tried to blame it all onthe drink.

It wasn’t just the drink.

It was seeing her again. The eagerness with which she’dflown into his arms.

It was teasing her, the water fight at the car wash, and theway his cock had stiffened when that wet tee had strained against her breasts.

It was the smell of her on the shirt he was wearing, and thepressure of her feet on his thighs. The heat seeping through the cotton PJbottoms, then sliding into his veins, coursing through him and reminding him ofthose last few months before he’d left Castaic. The months when all he’d beenable to think about was Abby, even though he’d never worked up the nerve totell her. How could he? They’d been friends. Friends. And no way washe going to screw that up by telling her he’d been jerking off every night tothe fantasy that she’d sneak over and into his room the way they’d used to in sixthgrade.

He hadn’t told her then, and he wasn’t going to tell hernow, even though he longed to pull her down on the couch, then silence her gaspof surprise with a hard, punishing kiss, wild and deep enough to erase hisfantasies. Or fulfill them.

“Renly.”

Because why the hell would he need them if he had reality?

“Renly!”

He shook himself, turning to her and praying he hadn’t saidany of that aloud. “Sorry? What?”

“I said that tickles.”

He realized he’d been stroking the ball of her foot with thepad of his thumb. “Oh. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. It felt nice. At least until it started totickle.” She cleared her throat, and her cheeks turned a little pink, and he hadthe feeling that she was bullshitting. That it didn’t tickle at all, and shejust wanted him to stop stroking her skin.

And that was a damn shame.

He cleared his throat and shifted on the sofa, using themovement as an excuse to pull his hands away. “So tell me about these calls,”he said because that seemed like the safest possible topic.

“It’s probably just paranoia,” she said. “I told you on thestreet. Heavy breathing. Hangups. A real pain.”