Chapter 23 #2
Deacon shrugged. “I think a photo showing something hidden is sometimes better than showing it all.” His gaze looked hooded for a moment, and when he looked up, I thought he glanced at my lips, but then his expression looked neutral, so I was sure I’d imagined it.
“What can I get you, Deacon?” The server smiled brightly, returning to the table with her notepad at the ready.
He motioned to me with a flourish. “I’ll let my buddy go first—but I think she’s going to want the biscuits and gravy with extra gravy and another Bloody Mary.”
I nodded with a fake smile when she looked at me, the sound of the word “buddy” hanging in the air like a lead balloon as Deacon ordered waffles with eggs and bacon. Buddy. Okay, that’s fair. And that was what I wanted to get back to, or at least, what I should have wanted to get back to.
“I’ll feel it during my workout later, but who can resist waffles?” He unrolled the paper napkin, and I was distracted by his fingers again with the neatly trimmed nails and calluses. “Bet your country club brunches didn’t have napkins this nice, did they?”
I grinned, another fake grin I hoped he couldn’t read on my face.
“Definitely not.” I looked around at the groups of people out for brunch—the diner was busy with old couples and young college students in sweats and kids giggling and joking.
It was loud and messy and worlds away from the country club and stiff conversation with Spencer’s parents. I nodded again. “It’s perfect.”
“We can come back—I don’t know how many rooms I want to paint with you, but any re-do that involves bacon, count me in.”
“Thanks, buddy,” I said, focusing on my napkin and ignoring the bitterness of the words in my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, my phone screen flashed again, and Zoe’s text appeared on the silent screen from the spot between us where it rested.
Zoe: Show him page two!
I was going to block her number or kill her, and I flipped the phone over.
“What’s page two?” Deacon casually leaned back in his chair, one elbow slung over the back, and took another sip of his orange juice.
The curve of his biceps and muscular forearms was defined under the compression shirt, and I bit my lower lip, remembering how it felt to be held in those arms. How was I ever going to stop imagining that on a loop in my brain?
“It’s not polite to read someone else’s screen,” I chastised, ignoring the loop.
“You’ve never wanted me to be polite.” His smirk, that voice. The loop could not be stopped. “I believe you told two strangers on the street you liked my penis allusions.”
“Here you go.” The server approached with my refill.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping she’d get the hint she could keep moving along.
“Page two?” Deacon raised one eyebrow and ran fingers through his hair. “Did you add more to your list?”
“Um…yeah. Kind of.”
“You’re making progress on the first page. What’s next?”
“I don’t think these are ones I’ll actually do.” I pulled the notebook from my bag, holding the scribbled pages to my chest.
“You didn’t think you’d do any of them,” he said.
“But look at you now. You sing on stage. You march in rallies.” He motioned down my chest but then stopped his hand.
“Let’s see.” He held out his hand, and his fingers brushed mine, sending a spark up my arm.
Our gazes met for a split second, and I felt the same sparks.
But of course he didn’t. I was his buddy. His buddy’s baby sister.
I reluctantly handed over the list, Zoe’s suggestion still dancing in my mind.
He read over the first page, noting the items I’d crossed off, including hand-holding and a first kiss.
I thought his own cheeks grew a little pink when he saw those but didn’t comment.
He pointed at the page where I’d written learn to drive.
“I feel compelled to remind you that you already know how to drive. I’ve seen you do it. ”
I chuckled, hoping now he might forget to move to page two. “But I never learned to ride a bike, so I thought I could do that. If there are wheels, it counts, right?”
He laughed. “I never relearned how to ride after my surgery. I could do that one with you. We can ride until we can’t see anymore,” he added with a wink over his glass.
“Oh, God,” I groaned, dropping my face into my palms, again committed to destroying Zoe, but when I looked up, he was flipping to the second page.
“I can take that back,” I said, making a grab for the list, but he pulled it toward him and held it out of my reach.
“What’s on page two, Low?” he asked, but then his eyes widened.
“Oh, God,” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have let you read that.” I tried to tug the notepad back, and he held it out of reach again.
“Wow,” he said, scanning the list, his gaze moving back up to the top of the page. “Dirty talk, hand stuff, oral—giving and receiving, girl on top, against a wall, being tied up…Holy shit, Low.”
“I know,” I said, back into my hands. “I told you, I’ll never do them. But you like big questions, so I thought I could share my big, silly list. I was just…”
He leaned in when I trailed off, eyes skating over the list again. “Just what?”
“Just…imagining. I really liked sex. I mean, the idea of it. Sometimes the real thing was good,” I said, lowering my voice.
The server set down syrup and ketchup on the table and paused.
I saw her feet because I hadn’t looked up from my shame spiral, and Deacon finally thanked her and she walked off.
Things were quiet for a moment, and I finally looked up to find him studying me intently.
“There’s nothing wrong with liking sex,” he said, his voice low. “Stop hiding your face. You should do these if you want to.”
I took the list and shoved it back in my bag. “There won’t be a second date with Theo. I don’t have anyone in my life to do these things with.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to convince someone, Low. I told you, even though I shouldn’t have. You’re sexy. You’re…Lots of guys would jump at the chance to be with you.” I noticed the set of his jaw tense at the words.
“I don’t think I’d be comfortable with a stranger, though, and who knows what will happen in a couple months when Cruz is home and I have to decide what comes next.”
“True,” he said, some realization coming over his face.
“You’re not sticking around.” He looked thoughtful for a moment and then pushed his empty glass aside so he could take my hand across the table.
The warmth of his touch sent tingles through my body.
“Maybe when you get home, there’s a buddy who might be up for friends with benefits. ”
I laughed. “I don’t have any buddies left back home.
” Other than Zoe, our friends had been couples, mostly, and a lot of them we knew through Spencer.
“As far as men go, you and Blaine are my only buddies. And Blaine is gay and definitely into his ex, and you’re… you’re the only other man in my life.”
Dear God. I’d propositioned him over brunch. Commence sinking into the floor.
His eyes met mine again, the gaze intense, and reminded me of how he’d looked in the rain before he kissed me, his irises impossible to look away from as his thumb grazed my wrist and made a little moan escape my lips. And I thought, Maybe. I held on to the maybe.
“Low. We kissed the other night after the party, but it was a bad idea.” At his words, “maybe” drifted into the air like a runaway balloon.
“For a lot of reasons. You’re leaving, but I’m not sticking around, either.
Also, I’m too old for you and I promised your brother.
I’d never want you to expect things and be disappointed. ”
He swept his thumb across my wrist again, the touch barely there but still making my core pulse with need.
“I don’t think you could ever disappoint me.
” I swallowed hard, because every instinct told me to drop this and take the rejection, but then his thumb would shift again and my nerve endings lit up.
The old Willow would have dropped it. “I know you’re leaving.
I know Cruz is your best friend. And the ten years you have on me are filled with experience.
You’re kind of the perfect person, Deac. ”
Deacon stroked a thumb over my skin again, and this time, his gaze definitely dipped to where I’d pulled the corner of my lip between my teeth. “Is that what Zoe was referring to?”
I chuckled and slid my thumb along the side of his, testing the waters. I did want those things just for me, and even though asking made me feel nine varieties of anxiety, I pushed forward. “She said I should say, ‘Let’s see how many times we can make each other come, no strings.’ ”
His eyes flashed, and I wanted more of that gaze, even for just a few weeks or a couple of months. He’d be the perfect person to help me forget Spencer and move on.
“So,” I said, nervously. “Should I ask that way?”