Overdue

Chapter Forty-One

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

We slept for a few hours, but we both woke early, each conscious of the other’s every shift.

The narrow mattress enhanced the experience, but we would have been aware and awake even if we had been sleeping on a king.

We studied each other as dawn broke through the bamboo shades.

The growing light gradually revealed more of our bodies, our freckles and blemishes and scars.

“You’re so beautiful,” Macon said, touching the mole on my cheek with reverence. “I’ve never seen anybody so beautiful.”

My skin tingled. I ran my fingers through his disheveled hair, stroked the stubble on his face, traced the lines of his ear and nose and lips. He stayed very still.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“I love you,” he whispered back.

“We’re allowed to say it now.”

“Out loud, even.”

We kissed, long and slow, but my eager energy built and built and built until I had to pull away for it to gush out. “It’s just that I like you so much.”

He gave me the amused look I’d seen so often—the look he gave only to me—but he also appeared to be melting with happiness.

“Honestly, if you knew how much I like you,” I said, “it would probably freak you out.”

“Oh God, Ingrid. I’m obsessed with you.”

I leapt into another kiss, and he kissed me back intensely before moaning and burying his nose in my hair. “Fuck, you smell incredible,” he said.

I laughed.

“I’m serious. You leave this fruity, citrusy smell in your wake, and it’s been driving me insane for years. I would drink an entire bottle of your shampoo, whatever it is.”

I nuzzled my face against his chest, giddier than I had ever been in my life. “It’s my conditioner. Mango citrus.”

He inhaled again and released a growl. “My bathroom has smelled like this ever since you left. Whenever the shower steams, I smell you. Your scent is still embedded in my towels.”

Another erection pressed against me, asking a question.

I shoved him onto his back and climbed on top.

“What time do you have to be at work?” he asked afterward. It was a Sunday, so he had the day off.

“I’m not going in today.”

He propped himself up on his elbows, surprised.

“Mika has been trying to convince me to take a day off ever since we opened. I’m finally going to do it.”

“Oh my God. I have you for the entire day?”

“What should we do?”

His arms wrapped around me, pulling me back into him.

“First we’re going to bundle up and walk to my house.

” We couldn’t stop kissing each other. “Then I’m going to make you pancakes.

” We could have devoured each other. “And then we’re going to fall into my bed and stay there for the rest of the day. ”

“Can I bring a book?”

“Absolutely. Although I doubt you’ll have time to read it.”

“Maybe in the morning.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “maybe tomorrow morning.”

“I suppose that means I should pack an overnight bag.”

“Yes,” he said. “Or you can borrow my things.”

“Or mine. They’re still at your house.”

“I’ve been taking good care of them.”

I smiled as I detached from him and climbed out of bed to stretch my cramped limbs.

He stared up at the full length of my body, drinking it in.

I handed him his glasses and then dressed with slow intention, a strip show in reverse.

My prettiest underthings. I leaned in to kiss him, and his fingers dipped beneath the lace straps of my bra, toying with them, letting them gently snap, taking pleasure in the anticipation of what would come again later.

I shrugged on a loose V-neck sweater, and his gaze turned longingly to my legs.

I zipped up my pants and buttoned them closed.

He shook his head, almost laughing, as if he still couldn’t believe any of this was real. I understood how he felt.

We spent the next twenty-four hours together, reveling in our newfound access to each other’s bodies.

Although he had been too shy to make the first move, he remained confident in every single move that followed.

The sex was exhilarating, our need to possess each other insatiable, but even more, I basked in the sacredness of the everyday—wrapping my arms around him while he flipped the pancakes, leaning against him while we brushed our teeth, draping my legs across his while we read.

His hugs were strong and unlimited. I glowed whenever he tucked my hair behind my ears, pressed a hand against the small of my back, rested his head on my shoulder to marvel at our reflections together in the bathroom mirror.

We already knew each other’s secret awkwardnesses. We already trusted each other. I wore my night guard. He wore his socks and sandals. And when Edmond made biscuits on me in bed that night, Macon clutched his chest, and his eyes puddled into ridiculous cartoon hearts.

IT HAPPENED , I texted Kat on my way to work the following day.

My phone lit up immediately with a FaceTime request.

“ Tell me he was worth the wait,” she said.

I cackled in triumphant jubilation.

I stayed at Macon’s house every night except for when he worked the late shift at the library.

It seemed right to set some sort of boundary, however arbitrary, but the hours without him were intolerable.

“You’re like a teenager with her first boyfriend,” Mika teased me.

And then Bex always chimed in: “Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding.”

It was the sound of my lamp, and the first time Bex did this, I just about died.

But Macon and I felt like teenagers, aroused and obsessed. We fucked in the dirt of his humid greenhouse, on the cold tile floor in his kitchen, in the shower when we were supposed to be getting ready for work. We couldn’t keep our hands and mouths and bodies off each other.

“You know,” I said on one of those early nights, lying exhausted in his lamplight and feeling daring, “my first orgasm in this bed was not with you.” His eyes brightened with disbelief, and I turned gleeful. “Don’t get me wrong. You were in my thoughts.”

“Holy shit. When I was out of town?”

“I never changed your sheets. I wanted to be surrounded by you.”

“And here I was, disappointed that you did change them before you left.”

“Of course I did! My guilty scent would have been all over them.”

“Oh my God.” A hand went to his forehead. “Yeah, that might have actually killed me.” He gaped at me through his fingers, laughing. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“You would have done it in my bed.”

“Well… I definitely did it smelling your scent on my towels.”

I gasped and shrieked with delighted laughter. “What else?”

He was smiling straight at me. He was always looking at me now, and I was always looking at him. We didn’t have to hide our interest anymore. “What else what?”

“What else haven’t you been able to tell me? Like, have you been sniffing the clothes in my boxes, too?”

His expression fell with seriousness. “Ingrid, no. I promise I’ve never gone through any of your boxes. That would have been such a violation.”

That was actually a much better answer. “Really?”

He held up a hand like an oath. “Apart from that one time when I was shifting them around, and one fell open, and one of your sweaters was right there on top. I might have smelled the sweater. It might have smelled unbelievably good.”

My feet wiggled against his with excitement. I wasn’t into feet, but I liked that it was another part of him that I’d never seen before and now had full-time access to. I liked all of his new parts. “What else?”

He trapped my feet between his to stop them from wiggling. But he was smiling again. “Your turn.”

“Your glasses.” I sighed. “So sexy.”

He wasn’t wearing them, and his eyebrows rose.

“Feel free to leave them on sometimes. You know.”

The eyebrows rose even higher, but then he turned contemplative. “I suppose they are one of the only things Cory and I have in common, appearance-wise.”

“I like a nerdy frame,” I confirmed.

“So why did you wear contacts? Before the Lasik?”

Sometimes it still struck me as odd how long we’d known each other—and how well he knew me. That he remembered I’d had the surgery five years earlier. “My vision was terrible . The lenses of my glasses were so thick that they made my eyes look even bigger and buggier.”

He frowned. “You don’t have buggy eyes.”

“I do a little bit. It was more obvious when I was younger.”

“Your eyes are striking and unique. They’re one of my favorite things about you.”

I wiggled my feet happily again. “The pen.” I reached out and tapped behind his ear, then made a rumbling noise of pleasure. “That too.”

“So you’re saying you like my accessories.”

I laughed. “Yeah. You come with good accessories.”

“Okay, since you brought it up… that night at your store? When you were dancing? I have thought a lot about that moment when you slid my pen into your mouth.”

I shrank and finally did look away. “Oh my God, I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t. I was just horny.”

“Yeah.” He laughed. “Me too. You also scared me shitless. I didn’t know if that was the sort of thing you did with friends or what.”

My gaze shot back to him. “The sort of thing I did with friends ?”

“I don’t know! You did run off and dance with them the second they arrived. You were in a wild mood. I had no idea what was happening.”

“A terrible seduction, apparently.”

“The seduction was effective, I assure you.”

I grinned and scooted farther into him. I couldn’t get close enough. I wanted to crawl inside his body and set up camp.

“On a related note”—he shook his head—“that bra with the red floral pattern. That one underneath your tank top.”

“Thought about that, too, huh?”

“Fucking hell. Please wear it again soon.”

“You know, you’ve always been very good at keeping your eyes up here.” I pointed at my face. “You’ve always been respectful. I appreciate that.”

“Thank God I don’t have to be such a gentleman anymore.”

I poked him.

“I try not to be a creep,” he said. “But I looked a lot when you weren’t looking. I’ll leave it at that.”

“I looked when you weren’t looking, too.”

“At my accessories?”

“The back of your neck.”

He wasn’t sure how to take that. “My neck?”

“Mm, and your arms and shoulders. And ass.”

He burst into surprised laughter. I nestled against his chest, and he softly touched my clavicle. “I’ve saved every photo you’ve ever texted me.” His voice rumbled against my ear. “Even the ones you’re not in. Which unfortunately is most of them.”

I turned my head to look up at him, and he nodded down at me. “I’ve spent hours staring at that photo of you and Edmond,” he said.

“What photo?”

“That selfie. The one with the bacon book.”

I felt pleased but also slightly embarrassed. “If I’d known you were keeping it, I would have sent a better one.”

“No. It’s perfect. It looks just like you.”

“That’s because it’s a photo,” I explained.

He poked me back. “You looked natural. And you were in my house with my cat. It’s a good picture.”

“This isn’t fair. I don’t have any of you.”

He shuddered. “I hate having my picture taken.”

“I know, but I have none . After all these years! I want a photo. I want lots and lots of photos of you. I want photos of you and me together, multiple albums on my phone.”

“You’re the photogenic one.”

“Shut up. You’re very handsome, and I want to be able to look at your face whenever I want.”

His skin warmed underneath me. “Okay.”

“Good. Yay.”

“Speaking of phones… I used to hope those emoji hearts meant something, but you always put them in our work texts, too.”

“Yeah, I send hearts to everyone,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Damn. I wasted a lot of time wondering about that.”

“ Now they’ll mean something. I’ll switch from red to pink. Only the most special people in my life get the pink ones.”

“Glad to hear I’ve been upgraded, at least.” His arm readjusted around me, and he stroked my hair. “You know, I used to worry that I wasn’t your type because your ex is so much more playful and extroverted than I am. Like, I bet he sends emojis.”

“He does. But everybody should be using fewer of them, so you’re still the cool one here. And it was exhausting dating an extrovert.”

“I just don’t want to end up like my mom, terrified to leave the house. Even though I’ve never had those phobias,” he amended quickly. “I don’t want you to worry.”

I shook my head against his chest. I knew he hadn’t, and I had never worried about that, but it made me sad to think about him worrying about it.

“That’s why I push myself to go out,” he said.

“Like to my parties?”

“I went to those because they were yours. I wanted to be there. Though yeah, in general, I don’t see what’s so wrong about not wanting to do stuff.”

“That might be the sexiest thing you’ve ever said.”

“You must be tired of doing stuff.”

“I’m so tired of doing stuff.”

He kissed the top of my head. “That reminds me of another thing.”

I perked up. “Oh?”

“Do you remember that training session where they taught us how to use the new system?” He was referring to a boring event that had lasted all day and had ended, inexplicably, in an extended social gathering.

“Well, I was having a miserable time off in a corner somewhere, and you found me and said, ‘I’m gonna leave and grab a burger. Want to come?’ And it was like being rescued.

You rescued me. I don’t know why I didn’t realize I could just…

leave on my own. But then we had those great veggie burgers, and we were laughing so hard, and you looked so bewitching in the restaurant’s light. And I remember thinking, uh-oh .”

I burrowed into him deeper. I’d forgotten about that night.

“I told Dani later that you’d saved me—leaving out the uh-oh —but apparently, I didn’t leave enough of it out because she got pissed off at me. Dani really hated you.”

“She did?” I felt strangely hurt, even though I hadn’t liked her either. Even though I’d already suspected she didn’t like me.

“She didn’t care for the way I looked at you. Or talked about you. Or the fact that you were this cute, sparkly woman who sat beside me all day long.”

“Sometimes I used to worry I wasn’t your type because she was so serious.”

“It was exhausting dating somebody so serious,” he said, and I laughed. “See? I don’t even remember what her real laugh sounded like. By the time she moved out, it had been so long since I’d heard anything other than her sarcastic one.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. It only made me more sure of what I did want.”

“Sounds like you’re talking about me again.”

“I’m definitely talking about you again. You’re my favorite subject. People should write books about you so I can buy them from your store and read them.”

“ The Care and Keeping of Ingrid ,” I said.

He laughed. “ A People’s History of Ingrid .”

“ How to Win Ingrid and Influence Her .”

“ The Joy of Ingrid .”

“That’s the one,” I said. My heart was so full it was spilling over. “That’s the one they’d write first.”