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Today really went off the rails.
I shouldn’t have gone to the storage unit. I knew it even at the time. I just wanted to relive those moments of sitting in that chair, talking to my daughter, planning out our future.
I wanted to imagine her weight in my arms again.
I shouldn’t have come to Beck’s room either. It’s pushed the boundary of our friendship beyond any reasonable point. But when he picked me up and pulled me in his lap today, I was the safest I’d felt in a very long time. And I want to feel that way again.
What would have happened if I’d met Beck first? A chill runs down my spine at the thought, but I’m not sure it’s abadchill.
He slides his arm under my head and I let my face rest against his bare chest. He always seems to run about ten degrees warmer than everyone else, while I’m about ten degrees colder. I wonder if he could warm me all the way through if I were just near him long enough.
My hand unfurls from its tight fist, pressed to his stomach, splaying over his warm skin.
He’s only wearing boxers. I should have realized it sooner. Now that the chill has left me, the sharp sort of grief, I get why he hesitated when I asked if I could sleep in his room. My hand moves to his rib cage—his body is taut as a bow, tense. He’s as painfully aware of me as I am of him. Sleeping with Beck—how many times have I imagined that? Countless. I never felt bad about it, but I was also never lying beside him in bed when I did it.
My hand stretches, trying to reach as much skin as possible from a single spot, his ribs under my forefinger, my pinky brushing the trail of hair just below his belly button. His breath comes in a short burst.
“Kate,” he warns, his voice hoarse.
I raise up so that I’m half over him, my head slightly above his, and he searches my face for a breathless second before his hand digs into my hair, slides to the back of my neck and pulls my mouth to his.
It’s soft, and slow, and perfect—the kind of kiss that promises it won’t be stopping anytime soon. There’s no haste to it, but a fire spreads through my blood anyway, several years of repressed want bursting to life.
His free hand travels down my spine and inside my waistband until his rough, large palm is against my bare skin. I move slightly and let my weight settle atop him. He groans as his very long, thick erection wedges against my abdomen. It makes my mind go blank.Yes.I want to do so many things to you that I don’t even know where to start, Beck.
“Shit,” he says suddenly. He withdraws his hand from my panties and gently rolls me off him. “We can’t do this.” He sounds winded, as if he’s just finished a long race.
Or as if he’s struggling to do the right thing when he shouldn’t have to be the one struggling.Ishould have been the one to stop this.
I climb from the bed. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he says gruffly. “This is on me. You were upset and I—”
“You didn’t do anything, Beck,” I say, stopping him. I walk to the door before I turn toward him. “Can we forget this happened?”
“Pretty fucking unlikely.” His voice is more gravelly than usual. “But we can try.”
* * *
Everything is totallynormal the next day. I make breakfast. He goes outside to drag tires and dig trenches or whatever it is he does in his yard, then he sits at the counter, shower-damp and half-dressed, and I pretend I’m not ogling him. Just like normal.
Except now I’m also remembering that kiss. I’m remembering his mouth and the warmth of his skin, how fuckinghardhe was, the way his hands knew exactly where to go and were not hesitant in any way. I’m remembering it so much that when his eyes find mine, he knows exactly where my head is.
“You okay?” he asks. Unperturbed. As if nothing happened at all.
“Yeah.” My voice is slightly too breathless to be convincing. “We’re out of syrup.”
He nods, as if these two phrases make sense back-to-back, which they do not. “I can get some,” he offers.
“That’s okay.” I turn away, swallowing. “I’m going to the store later.”
This mundane exchange troubles me more than any post-hookup conversation I’ve ever had because this is not me. I’ve never been awkward with men. I am not hesitant or breathless or uncertain. I’ve never saidnoto something I’ve wanted and I’ve never had someone tell menowhen I’ve wanted it. I’m no longer sure about anything anymore. I only know that the sight of him reaching for his helmet—the small pulse of his tricep as it happens—makes my core clench.
And that, an hour later, his smirk as I walk into the bar makes it clench again.
We eat lunch together, and I drink him in like a lovesick teenage girl with her long-term crush each time he glances at his plate. When I glance up frommyplate, his eyes are on me too.
And nothing about any of it is new. It’s always been this way with us, hasn’t it? I just wasn’t willing to admit it until now.
