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I guzzled down a large glass of water that did very little to temper the heat still bubbling in my blood. Date five. No sex until date five. It didn’t mean we couldn’t do other things instead. But already I wanted to feel him. Feel us, like that. I had to wait until date fucking five? There wasn’t even supposed to be a date two. And honestly, at this rate I’d be in love with him by date five. Which would make the inevitable end that much harder to bear. But he promised we’d be friends first. Friends always. We could still do that, right? Yes, it would be strange at first, already I knew that seeing him tomorrow and not immediately kissing his face off was going to be a challenge, but we’d manage. We’d make it work.
I smiled. He took me skating. My feet already had a long forgotten ache in them as I kicked off my boots. I’d be lucky to walk without a limp tomorrow after waking up all those muscles that hadn’t been used for over twenty years. I hadn’t even realized how much I missed skating until we were there and that giddy excitement rose up in my chest. I could have stayed there all night. I was already itching to go again.
I collapsed backwards onto my bed, grinning at the ceiling, as one hand coming up to brush over my mouth. The feel of Mack’s kisses lingered. The scratch of his stubble. The slide of his fingers through my hair. I could so easily lose myself in him. In us. I knew I would happily, enthusiastically, welcome the oblivion.
Of course, he had left the ball squarely in my court. If I said we needed to stop here, at dry humping that was better than a lot of the actual sex I’d had, I knew he’d respect the decision, even if he didn’t like it. But did I want to stop now? Could I? The pulse between my thighs said no. That pulse wanted to feel more than just his thigh grinding through layers of denim.
The problem was his five date rule. If that hadn’t been laid down I could have asked for one more date and lured him into bed. I could still try it, but I didn’t want him to think this was just about sex for me. It wasn’t, not by a long shot. But knowing how he kissed had given a very tantalizing indication of how everything else would be. And that was … mind boggling.
Time for a cold shower.
I woke up the following morning with my hair plastered to my face and breath heaving like I’d just run a marathon. My dreams, as expected, had been of the naked variety and starring my best friend. If he was anything like he had been in my mind, he was going to beincredible.
Thanks to the filthy dreams, my sleep hadn’t exactly been restful. As tempted as I was to stay in bed, the chance of it making me feel any more relaxed were slim while Mack was still on my mind. So I rolled out of bed and straight into a cold shower to douse any residual lustiness.
No amount of cold water was going to stop me thinking about the date, though. And the kisses. And the way Mack looked at me. The whole thing felt like a dream, and not the lusty kind—the perfect kind. The kind that made me think maybe this thing between us wasn’t destined to end. Maybe we could make it work. Was that too much to hope for after only one date? Possibly. Probably. God, I didn’t even know.
The thought of an actual long-term relationship usually made me break out in hives. But this wasn’t a relationship with just anyone, this was a relationship with Mack. He knew all of my crazy already because he’d had a front row seat to most of it. I couldn’t quite fathom why he’d still want me after seeing all that. Yet he hadn’t been scared away. But sticking by a friend was different to wanting to be in an actual relationship with that person, right? Would he eventually decide that it was too much? That I was too much?
I slumped against the vanity, staring at my reflection as I brushed my teeth. What would it be like to stand beside someone else every morning and do this? Make coffee. Eat breakfast. Do nothing in particular. Would all those mundane life moments start to feel different with another person to share them with?
I was getting ahead of myself. I’d never even let another person in my shower (I’d broken up with more than one for the mere suggestion) and now I was thinking about us living together? It was time to get a hold of myself. One date. We’d been on one date. And yes, it was good—the best date I’d ever been on, if I was being honest—but it was still only one date. I hadn’t decided if there was going to be another.
Liar.
A second date was a risk for more than one reason. First, it would be difficult to top yesterday’s date. He really had set the bar high. Second, another date would make my feelings even more tangled than they already were. As I’d said to Mack last night, it would increase complications. But maybe he was right, maybe it wasn’t that complicated, because it was just us. Me and him. Him and me.
Could it really be that simple?
If I’d thought the temptation to talk about the date was bad yesterday, before it had even happened, it was at a whole other level now. Like yesterday, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to say, or to whom. I’d never been one of those people who had a lot of friends. It hadn’t really bothered me before, but right now it would have been nice to talk all this out with a girlfriend, just to see what they’d say. A little advice, maybe? But it was fine, I didn’t actually need it, I was just feeling weird.
A distraction, that was what I actually needed, not advice, because what could anyone say? Nothing. Nothing helpful, anyway, so I just needed to take my mind off everything.
It wasn’t until I was standing in the middle of my living room in a pair of yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt that it occurred to me my usual distraction was work.
“God, that’s sad,” I said to my empty apartment. I was sure that, at some point, I’d had hobbies, things I did for fun aside from study and work. Skating had been one of them, for a while at least, but I just stopped. It had made me so happy, and I just stopped. Granted, it would have been difficult when we moved, and I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t remember missing it, not really. But as soon as I stepped onto the ice yesterday, it was like some part of me that had been asleep woke up.
My nose burned. Was I about to cry right now? Over ice skating? I sniffed. It wasn’t just about ice skating, though. I’d been working and working and working for years and I hadn’t stopped long enough to see that maybe there was something missing. Maybe I was a little bit unhappy, lonely. It was easy to convince myself otherwise, I saw my best friend everyday, my life felt full, but maybe it wasn’t as full as I liked to think?
I brushed the rogue tears off my cheeks and shook out my shoulders. All this thinking on an empty stomach and not enough sleep was making my head hurt. I needed food. And coffee.
After a brief exploration of my kitchen cabinets, it was clear that the food and the coffee would need to come from somewhere that was not my apartment. I would just have to go foraging in the wilds of Williamsburg.
I pulled open the door, ready to devour the first food I came across, and found Mack standing there, one hand raised to knock and the other balancing a coffee tray and a large paper bag. My heart stuttered in my chest the same way it did when I saw him yesterday because he was just so fucking beautiful it made me want to cry, and I could have stared at him all day long. I also wanted to kiss him, very, very badly.
“Hi.”
“Hey,” he said, eyes darting down to my mouth then coming back up. “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”
“Not crying, I’m fine, great, I’m great. Why–uh–what are you doing here?”
He dropped a kiss on my cheek that sent a warm tingle down my spine and walked inside like everything was completely normal, like he hadn’t pinned me to this exact door last night and almost kissed me into next year. “Thought you might be hungry.”
I stared after him, then closed the door and followed into the kitchen. “And you just happened to be in the neighborhood?” Our apartments weren’t actually that far from one another, but I still hadn’t expected the house call—not that I wasn’t appreciative of it.
“Nope, went to Cream and Sugar, have you tasted their cinnamon buns? They’re out of control. I got a couple of bagels, too.”
“And coffee?”
