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The thought electrifies me.
She might not be ready forallthe affection I want to show her, but she’s definitely been opening up to me, touching me, letting me touch her, doing things with me that she doesn’t do with anyone else.
Maybe she’s realizing she can’t quit me either.
My God, I can see it unfolding.
I can just see us in another week or two or three, talking quietly while Rae’s asleep like we have many times before, only when I make her laugh or she soothes a pang over Lolly or whatever else, it won’t stop with a hug or hand-holding—it’ll go from that laugh or that consolation to me pulling her so close she has to tilt her head back to look at me, and she’ll smile at me with her eyes like she does sometimes and even though I’ll love that because I always do, I’ll have to trade seeing it for touching my mouth to hers, then pressing, and she’ll put her hands on me and kiss me right back, and it’ll be so easy and so good because the truth will be plain to her: we’re infinitely better with each other than we ever—
We jump a mile as noise blares up between us.
“Holy—” she huffs out, sitting up so I can dig the breaker of silence out of my pocket, “—cell phone.”
“Man,” I mutter, pulse fast from my alarm going off and from what I was thinking about. I shut the phone up and look at her regretfully. “I was comfortable.”
As she untwists her pajama shirt from around herself, she nods at me in endearingly shy agreement.
Wow, I’m a moron for imagining kissing her when the still-unkissable version of her is literally right in front of me.
“Is it time for you to go to work?” she asks.
I rub at my eyes so she can’t see me rolling them at myself. “Not just yet. I usually get up to shower, eat, and visit Lolly before I go. Unless I have volunteer plans—then I do that stuff before work, too—but I got nothing today.”
As always, I sense she’s pleased to hear about my helping others, but that’s not what she mentions. “Are you finally going to see her this morning?”
I press my lips together and look away from her.
I’m not just annoyed with myself when it comes to Lolly—I’msickof myself.
Just like the last time she upset me, I’ve been keeping a distance. Today is Saturday, so it’s been almost a week since she mistook me for my dad, and I haven’t felt up to going back yet. And just like that other time, I’ve felt like an asshole about staying away.
Ashamed, I murmur, “Why am I like this, Liv?”
The pat of her hand on my arm makes me look at her again. Sympathy has graced her features.
“You’re not supposed to know how to handle it,” she murmurs back.
The words are just like the ones I said to her last night about her own guilt; in a way, they make my heart hurt, and in another way, they ease it.
“If you want to wait until after work,” she goes on, “Rae and I can go with you. That way you won’t have to go by yourself.” She shrugs. “Unless you’re not really ready.”
It wouldn’t kill me to go, especially if she and Rae tagged along. Besides, the longer I put it off simply because I’m a sissy-ass…well, the more precious time I waste.
I’ve wasted too much time already,a quiet part of me acknowledges.
I finally sit up, too, and nod at Liv. “I’d really like it if you guys went with me.”
There’s that eyes-only smile, fuck it all.
“We’ll be ready when you get off work,” she assures me.
I manage to say, “Thank you,” like I’m not internally struggling over whether or not I should tell her how beautiful she is to me.
She says, “Of course,” and stands up.
I take it as a sign that I should, at the very least, not give her that compliment when I’m already feeling so warm from liking her.
As I stand up, too, I stretch. She looks at me with shyness once again, and although wishful thinking involves her admiring me, I know realistically that she just has something else to say.
