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“That wasn’t nice,” she says, falling back into her seat and crossing her arms.
“I’m sorry.” I mean it. But what I’m sorry about is that I didn’t have the balls to segue being jealous into a talk about my feelings for her.
“Do you like it?” I tug on the sleeve of the jacket that she’s unfolded and laid across her lap. She flattens her palms over it and runs her hands along the silky tufts.
“I do. I really do.” She lifts her gaze to me and for a split second, I swear she’s admitting something. The light turns green, though, and just as quickly, that feeling is gone.
17/
laney
Ivy and Mattare playing a video game when we get home, so Cutter and I hang out in the big sitting chair while they battle it out. When I went to sit on the couch by our roommates, he tugged the loop of my jeans and offered his lap instead. I felt weird being so out in the open like this in front of our roommates, but now that his arms are around me and I can feel his chest crackle with laughter, I’m glad he made the move. Besides, Ivy’s seen us make out at Patty’s now, so there’s not much of a secret left.
Caney-ship is on.
I love watching Ivy and Matt interact. They’re so obviously siblings sometimes, even though they’re massively different. They’re playing some tennis game and things are getting heated to the point that Ivy is physically pushing her brother into the bean bag chair in order to score points and catch him off guard. She’s pint-sized in comparison, but she’s like a rabid animal when she’s competitive. She would have been a great athlete if she had any sort of skill. We’ve tried. She subbed on a rec softball team with me once and we spent the night at the ER getting stitches on her chin from where she was tagged by the ball whenit completely missed her glove. A glove that she had on the wrong hand.
“You should see me and my brothers play games. You think this is intense,” Cutter says at my ear.
“I’d love to meet them,” I say.
His arms snake around me tighter and I feel his lips press to the back of my head. This is nice. What we’re doing, what we’ve fallen into here in this house. It’s easy. But is that because of the rules we put in place? We’re pretending, like Cutter said, to not make things weird. But there’s a lot about this that doesn’t feel like roommates with benefits anymore. What he did for me tonight, the way he held me when we danced . . . those things feel.They feel.
“What’s with vintage track suit, Laney?” Matt picks up my stolen treasure that I’d set on the table and holds the jacket up to inspect it. “Oh, this is sweet! You’ve gotta let me make a post with you in this.”
Before I can advise against the idea, Cutter lifts me from his lap and jets toward Matt, snagging the garment from one hand and Matt’s phone from the other.
“This does not get posted anywhere, you got me?” Cutter drops his chin and holds Matt’s phone hostage against his chest, and Matt’s eyes dart to me for some sort of explanation. I draw a line across my closed mouth as if I’m zipping it then pretend to throw away a key.
“Okay, so the track suit is off limits. Kinda weird, but whatever,” Matt says, shaking his head and clearly thrown by our overreaction. If he only knew. I rather like that Cutter and I have a secret.
Cutter hands over Matt’s phone but keeps his eyes on him as he walks back to me and retakes his spot in the chair, promptly pulling me back to his lap. “That phone better go in your pocket and not come out,” he warns.
“Dude, it’s in my pocket. Look, see?” Matt spins around and pats the block in his ass pocket.
“Man, Cutter, if I knew that worked, I would have talked him into shoving that phone up his ass a long time ago,” Ivy says, pressing the pause on the game to take it live again so she can score the winning point while her brother is controllerless.
“Aww, damn! Ivy, that’s cheating!” He picks up his controller from the sofa and presses a few buttons in some last ditch attempt to stop the tallying of the score, but it’s useless. We laugh as a cartoon version of his sister dances around the screen and taunts him before Matt presses the power on the TV and pouts his way upstairs.
“Hard to believe he’s twenty-three,” his sister says.
She grabs a stack of books from the side of the couch and tucks them under her arm before heading upstairs too. Cutter and I are left alone in the chair, the room barely lit by the light spilling over from the kitchen. It’s quiet and peaceful, and I could sit here with his arms around me, his chin resting on my head, for hours.
“Do you really want to meet my brothers?”
His question fires up my chest. Family is definitely not something you throw into the mix when you’re simply hooking up. Family is a step. It took a year before I met Cam’s family. I’ve been with Cutter—if we can even call this being together—for not quite three weeks.
“Hey, if it makes you uncomfortable, never mind.”
“No, I want to,” I interject, the thought of him backtracking on the idea giving me a sharp pang in the chest.
He nudges my chin so we’re eye to eye.
“Are you sure?” His fingertips hover below my chin, and when I nod, his touch returns.
Cutter drops his forehead to mine as his thumb caresses its way to my bottom lip.
“They’re coming up for my game Saturday, along with my mom.”
