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It weighed on her. Like anything else in her life that was unresolved, it kept her awake, long after Tom was asleep. She stayed in bed, not wanting to wake him and have him follow her out to the kitchen again, but close to dawn she broke.
Tom had left the remaining coupons lined up in order on the coffee table. As they’d neared the end, he’d shuffled the cardboard tags around less, satisfied with their order and the narrative between them they created. The next coupon in line was a sixty-nine.
A complete circle. It was a sign of how thoroughly dumb it was she was tolerating this imperfect knowledge. She wasn’t losing any more sleep over it, wallowing around in indecision of her own making. She snatched the I Tell You a Secret coupon up and went back to the bedroom. She woke him with kisses to his prickly jaw, well before the alarm was due to go off.
Before he could weigh her down with long arms she loved, with returned kisses she craved, she sat over his legs and slapped the coupon on his chest. “We need to do this one.”
He picked it up and squinted at it. “Okay, but you’re sure you don’t want to tell me your secret while we’re lying in the dark with time on our hands, not about to get organized for work?”
“I love you.”
“We could...” His words died, and he sat up and took her shoulders in his hands.
“I love you. Fell in love with you. Am in love with you. There it is. I don’t know if that’s a secret to you or something you worked out, but it needed to be said.”
“Ah.” He screwed up his eyes; his mouth was a flat line of disapproval and he held a hand to his head. “It’s early.”
It was almost twelve weeks of getting to know each other, living together. It might be early for Tom, but not for Flick.
“It’s, ah. I’m not awake.”
It would be fair, if she believed that. Fair of him to react so flatly if she’d ambushed him, and sure, she’d sprung the coupon and the announcement, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have ample warning, and he was an intuitive guy. He either felt the same way as she did, or he didn’t. T
here was no gray area in this.
“Flick, give me a chance to...”
She didn’t hear the rest of his sentence. It was a variation of wake up, get dressed, think about it and I’ll get back to you.
She rocked forward and kissed his cheekbone. “It’s fine.” Now she knew. “I’m going to the gym.”
He didn’t stop her, and when she got back from making herself sick on the treadmill, he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tom let the scheduled call from Beau’s office go through to his voice mail. He had no headspace for Beau, no surety he’d have it in him to play the politics required. He’d hashed it through with Josh—there was a tone to take, a set of words to say that kept all the doors open and gave him the most leverage.
He should’ve talked to Josh about Flick. But he’d avoided it, written her off as sex on tap. Lift, hold and drop. He’d been patronizing, a fucking jerk, and Josh didn’t call him on it. And now he felt like a complete dickhead. He sent an email to Beau’s assistant to reschedule quoting a nonexistent client emergency. The emergency was all Flick.
He loved Flick, his head was full of her, his body primed to be with her, but she’d knocked him sideways with her secret confession this morning because he didn’t know that’s how she felt. Worse, he should’ve put that together, should’ve been ready. He was the planner, the strategist, the general. She was the pop-up event, the random occurrence, the black-swan rare incident, and he simply hadn’t factored for her.
And like a goddamn scorpion he’d stung her with his no-comment response.
He rubbed the spot on his chest where she’d slapped the coupon. He felt branded by it and by his failure to know what to do next. There’d be glitter in his bed, but he’d killed the sparkle of what he had with Flick.
He’d taken the thirty coupons at face value, considered them a game, the Tetris of Flick’s tenancy, when he should’ve read them as her version of a love letter.
He didn’t know what being in love with Flick meant. She’d taken over his life when he’d been ripe for rebellion, at least what passed as rebellion for him. But he’d known it was temporary and that acted like a fail-safe. He could do anything and everything with Flick because it wasn’t permanent. They weren’t in a relationship, they were roommates with benefits. It wasn’t a commitment, just a short-term hookup. Unlimited possibilities on a vacation timeline.
She would leave. He’d screw his head back on and deal with his career choices.
Except that thinking showed a superior lack of foresight. It didn’t allow for contingencies. He didn’t know he could feel this way, and the all-time, gold-class fuckup, he didn’t know what it meant.
He loved her. That was clear. She meant more to him than he ever expected. He loved Wren and Josh and Gram and his difficult goddamn father, but he didn’t want to change his life for them. He’d have to change his life for Flick, become someone other than he was. Someone who enjoyed the roller coaster, didn’t mind the wild weather and said hang the mess.
When Wren appeared in his doorway, he welcomed the distraction. “Do you come bearing a crisis?”
“No. Why?”
