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“I have to go, too,” Mom says. “It’ll look suspicious otherwise. But thank you both. So much.”
Mom gives me a hug. I squeeze her in return, with probably twice or three times as much pressure on my side.
I cling to her with the knowledge that I could’ve lost her or damaged our relationship.
“Do you want a ride home?” Mom asks. “I don’t finish for a few hours, but if you’ve got your laptop….”
Sometimes, I’ll work in the small room at the back of the office.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Hayden offered me a ride.”
Mom lets me go and smiles up at Hayden. “Thank you.”
Hayden inclines his head. “Anytime, Janine.”
The three of us head outside. Christina is waiting near the door, and then she and mom quickly rush across the street.
I watch them go, feeling a surreal note resound over and over again inside of me.
“Did that really just happen?” I ask.
Hayden turns, staring down at me, his lips somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. “I think it might have.”
“What now?” I ask.
“I’ll wait for your mom to send over the documents, I’ll assess them, and we’ll go from there.”
“No, I mean….”
His smirk completely replaces the grimace, his intense eyes seeming to glint. “About us?”
“Yeah. What the heck do we do? I was so convinced this was going to be it, Hayden.”
“Me too,” he says, with a heavy sigh. “It was easy to forget about….”
The fact we haven’t told dad yet.
“I know,” I murmur, not needing him to finish his sentence.
Somebody approaches the laundromat entrance, a giant canvas bag over their shoulders, staring angrily at Hayden and me.
We move off to the side, both of us laughing a little. We’re doing that more and more, on the phone and in real life, as if we’re constantly getting caught up in the sheer pleasure of being close together.
“We still need to stick to our rule,” he growls, moving closer to me.
I don’t have to ask why he says this now, seemingly out of nowhere. It’s like I can scent his body's readiness, the primal compulsion to claim me, to put babies inside of me.
“Did you mean it?” I whisper.
“About the rule?”
“No, before. About….”
“Us? Yes, I meant it,” he snarls. “I’ve never meant anything more.”
“But we can’t do anything in person,” I go on.
He sighs. “Hallie, we shouldn’t be doing anything on the phone either.”
My shoulders slump. “I know. Maybe we should say that, then…no anything before dad’s home.”
Hayden flinches, blowing out air through clenched teeth.
“I’m not sure I can do that. Those four days after we kissed…it felt impossible. I kept thinking If I could just get to a week. But it was like starving. I know I’m coming on way too heavy.”
“You’re not,” I say fiercely, raising my hand to touch his chest…then letting it drop when I realize how risky that would be. “There isn’t such a thing as too heavy with us, Hayden. It’s not like I’ve had a crush on you for years for no reason.”
I stop, realizing what I just did.
I didn’t mean to say that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hayden
“You really don’t care?” she asks again as I drive toward the suburbs, even as every instinct I possess is screaming at me to take her home. To my home.
“About your crush?” I say, shaking my head. “It doesn’t mean anything to me. I care about the now. You’ve got no idea how relieved I am that you feel the same.”
“Actually, I do.”
She places her hand on my arm, causing my body to flare awake, the primal hunger even fiercer now I know we’re not ending…not today, at least.
“Fair enough,” I say, voice trembling. “Of course you do. But the point is, it doesn’t matter to me how you felt when you were a kid…not as long as you really want this, us, and it isn’t just the crush.”
“It stopped being a crush the second we kissed,” she says, her voice tight, emotion flaring beneath it.
Her hand squeezes down on my arm, making my manhood even harder, making my desire even more difficult to ignore.
I’m ready in a different way now, not just for the release of her curvy virgin body, but knowing she wants it all, too, the life I dreamed about.
Fuck her, claim her now, now, now.
The voice comes like a drumbeat from deep inside.
I slow my speed as the traffic comes to a stop.
“So, what are you going to do when you get home?” Hallie asks, moving the conversation along.
“I’ll work on the article some more,” I tell her. “Or try to. Honestly, Hallie, I wish I could just take you with me. I wish we could spend the night together all day tomorrow and the day after that. The thought of leaving you….”
“We could do all that,” she murmurs. “But then….”
She doesn’t need to finish.
I’m about to mention her dad as if we need a reminder of how strictly we have to stick to our phone-only rule when my cell rings from my pocket.
