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Laughing, I throw my arm around her shoulders and pull her close, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. Her hair smells like lemons now after she finally gave in and let me wash it with the dishwashing liquid we found.
She’d been complaining about how gross it was and while I didn’t agree, I did suggest we just try washing it, because who knew when she’d be able to for real. She must have been desperate, because she actually let me do it, once again giving me another first when it came to this whole being in a relationship thing.
“I was just thinking that you are officially my second longest relationship,” I tell her, wrapping my other arm around her and pulling her into a hug, the two of us standing in front of the fire watching our dinner cook.
“What?” she says with a laugh. “Your second longest relationship after like three and a half days?”
She looks up at me and when I glance down, I laugh at the look on her face. “Yep,” I say, leaning down to give her a kiss. “I did date Jessica Steinman for like three months in high school, so you do have a bit of catching up to do though.” Her jaw drops and I can’t stop the laugh that falls from my mouth at her obvious surprise.
“You mean to tell me you seriously haven’t dated anyone since high school?” she asks. “Like, seriously?”
“Seriously,” I reply with a nod.
“No girlfriend in college?”
“Nope,” I say.
“But you…” she trails off, her brow narrowing.
Chuckling, I rub my thumb across the crease between her eyebrows. “Yeah, I hooked up with girls, Laney, you know that obviously. But I never had girlfriends. I didn’t do relationships, remember? Not until you.”
“So what,” she asks, “they were just fuck buddies?”
I lift a shoulder in a shrug, tilting my head to the side. “Fuck buddies, friends with benefits, one-night stands, I don’t know. Whatever fit, I guess.” Delaney swallows hard, an expression on her face that I can’t read even though I’m certain I know what she must be thinking right now. “Just ask your question, Laney,” I say, giving her a smirk.
“How many of them were there?” she eventually asks.
I let out a long exhale, squeezing her close. “Not as many as I’m guessing you’re imagining,” I reply. “I mean, yeah, I wasn’t a monk, but I wasn’t just out there fucking anything that moved either.”
“So, like double digits?” she asks, her cheek resting on my chest.
I squeeze her close again. “Yeah,” I admit. “I’m a guy in my early twenties, Laney, you know that’s how it is,” I add, although as soon as the words leave my mouth, I regret them. Because of course that’s probably exactly the kind of shit her ex said, although the difference between me and him is that I never pretended to be anything other than what I was.
Delaney doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t pull away either. I hold her close, dropping another kiss to the top of her head as we both continue watching the pot of boiling pasta.
“It was low double digits,” I finally say. “And anyway, that’s not who I am anymore.”
She finally looks up at me, a sad smile on her face as she asks, “How can you be so sure? You haven’t been in a relationship since what, you were—”
“Fifteen,” I reply, finishing her sentence. I watch as she does the math, realizing that the last girlfriend I had was when I was fifteen. Which was also the age I was when my mom died. Obviously, it doesn’t take a genius to connect those dots.
She nods in acknowledgement. “So what’s changed now?” she asks.
“You.”
A sad smile tugs at her lips. “But how do youknow?” she asks, and I can hear what she’s really asking me. How do I know she’s enough to stop me from falling back into my bad habits?
I run my hand up her back to her jaw, tilting her head back so she’s looking at me. “Two reasons,” I say, my eyes locked with hers. “First, there hasn’t been a day since I met you that I haven’t thought about you. Even when we were fighting, you were all I thought about. Day and night. You’re still all I think about.”
She blinks up at me, her bottom lip between her teeth as she takes in my words. “And the second reason?”
Smiling, I lean in and brush my lips against hers, wanting to say the words so badly, but only managing to get out, “And two, you’re sexy as fuck, Laney. And I really,reallylove having sex with you.”
She lets out a combination laugh and scoff as she slaps at my chest. Chuckling, I lean down and kiss her again, as I whisper against her lips, “Okay, three, I’m fucking crazy about you. And I’m not lying about that.”
“I gotta grab some more firewood,”I say as we lie on the mattress in front of the fire, our afternoon meal now finished.
“Okay, I’ll come,” Delaney says.
