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My heart started thumping, doubling in size with each beat.
I stood up, straddled his thighs and sat on his lap, facing him. The chair creaked beneath our weight. Two grown men in an old-ass kitchen chair was asking for trouble, but he didn’t move me, so I didn’t get up.
“You don’t even know the fucking things you do to me.” He leaned back some and looked up at me. “I’m right where I want to be, Riven. And yeah, would I have gone out with Wayne before? Probably. But right now I’d rather spend my time with you. It’s you I want to go out with, you I want to show a good time to. It’s less about going out and more about going out with you.”
Surprise flashed in his eyes, like he still wasn’t used to someone loving him. Some people were like that, I figured. It didn’t matter how many people cared about them, they had a hard time accepting it.
“I can’t do that with someone I don’t trust. Wayne is a nice guy, but I don’t know him. Not really. Plus, I’m not sure how it will even feel to be at a bar again.”
“Shit. That makes sense. I’m an idiot.”
“Nope.” He ran his hands up and down my back.
“You should go out with me tonight…just the two of us. We don’t have to go to a bar, but we can have dinner and…hell, go bowling or something. Do shit that normal people do. Have fun. I miss your smile from camping.”
“Getting me around people is the last way to make that happen,” he teased.
Maybe in some situations, but I didn’t believe that was always the case. “Go on a date with me, Riv.”
His stare was intense, penetrating, like the answers for everything he sought were in my eyes. “Don’t know that I’ve ever even gone on a proper date before. I fucked men on the down-low and looked for women who wouldn’t expect much from me. Jesus, I was shit to Becca when we were together.”
“You and Becca did things. I remember. Go on a date with me.”
One beat, then two and three moved between us before Riven gave me a simple nod.
*
We went out to dinner at a cheap steakhouse in Bedford. It wasn’t high quality by any means, and I used the term steakhouse loosely, but hey, I was taking my man out, and that’s what mattered. We weren’t fancy people anyway.
We both got a rib eye with a baked potato and vegetables.
I pointed at Riven’s potato. “I can’t believe you get yours covered in all that glop. Sour cream is the most disgusting thing ever.”
Riven surprised me by mock-gasping. “Who broke you?”
I snickered. “That’s you and not me.”
“You heard anything from Rex?” He didn’t make eye contact after the question, just shoveled a bite into his mouth.
“Nope. I would have told you if I did, but we’re not talking about that tonight. We’re having fun. I’m also going to kick your ass in bowling. I hate to be that guy, but I’m really good.”
Riven flipped me off. “You don’t hate to be that guy. You love it. Also, I’ve never been bowling in my life, so of course you’re gonna win.”
“Wait…what?” How could that be? “Betsy never brought you?”
“Not for lack of trying. I was a shit to her as a kid. I didn’t want to do anything positive. I wallowed in my suffering because…hell, maybe because I thought she would be miserable if she loved me, when it was the way I treated her that did that.”
“Jesus, Riv.” I reached over the table and took his hand. “Loving you is the best kinda happiness, and I should know.”
He rolled his eyes at my line, but I knew he really liked shit like that.
“I’m still gonna find a way to kick your ass,” Riven said. “I don’t care if I’ve never done it before.”
“That’s what you think,” I countered. And damn, I wished we had done things like this earlier. “What else haven’t you done?”
As Riven started giving me a list—he’d liked basketball but had always refused when Betsy tried to get him to play on the school team; he’d turned down trips to batting cages and had never been to an amusement park—I made a mental note to do each and every one with him.
When the bill came, I put my hand on it, sliding it in my direction before Riven could take it. He frowned, but if this was Riven’s first date, I planned to be the one who treated him.
“I could get that,” he told me.
“Yeah, but I got it first, baby. My treat.”
“Fine, but I’m buying next time.”
“Oh, so we’re going on a date again?” I knew I was being silly, but there was a lightness in my chest I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. Things were still a mess in our lives, I didn’t doubt that for a moment, but I wanted to forget that. I wanted Riven to forget that.
