Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“No no, you’re going to tell me everything that happened, in excruciating detail.”
“I would literally rather eat glass.”
“Abigail, you know I will not stop asking you until you cave.”
I sigh again. This is so not how I wanted this to go.
“At least tell me if I was any good.”
There’s no point in lying to him. “Yes. Very.”
He pumps his fist and almost spills his tea. “I knew it. What did we do? Where were we?”
“Right here, actually. You, um…” I trail off.
For some reason, I can’t tell him about the kissing.
A sex dream is one thing, but a kissing dream is entirely another—so much more intimate.
So I fast-forward a bit. “You just lifted me up onto the counter and spread my legs and went to town on me…on my…you know.”
“We started with that? God, I’m such a gentleman.”
“That’s actually all we did. Or all we got around to before my alarm very rudely interrupted.”
“I’ve let you down, Stripes. Shame you didn’t get the…total package.” He pumps his eyebrows for emphasis.
I cover my face with my hands. “Oh my God, kill me now.”
He pries my hands apart so I can see how his expression has turned serious. “So are you, like, in love with me? Is it going to be really awkward now?” He holds the look of concern for about half a second before the mirth creeps up again.
“Yeah, obviously I’m obsessed with you and it’s about to be hell for both of us.”
“Seems right.”
I look back at my phone. “No, I mean, don’t flatter yourself. It’s been so long since I’ve gotten laid that my subconscious is clearly like, ‘Come on, anyone will do.’ ”
He hums in agreement. “Prayers for that somewhat handsome barista at the café.”
“Our moderately attractive postman,” I say.
“That band of grimy lads on scooters on Edmund Street.”
“Torsten Vogler.”
He laughs. “Jesus, can you imagine? So much strategic maneuvering.”
“Ruthless tactical efficiency.”
“Three pumps and done.”
“A firm handshake and a nod after climax.”
“Stop, now I’m getting turned on,” he says, his eyes wide.
“Well, anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this morning’s foray into the terrifying hellscape that is my subconscious.”
“I’m just flattered it was me and not Kieran Campbell.”
I roll my eyes. “This again?”
“Come on, Stripes, he’s obviously into you.”
“He is so not! Also, he’s, like, twelve. And I’m not going to date someone at the club. I’d be fired.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.”
“Okay, maybe not fired, but I guarantee Charlotte would have something to say about it. Do you not remember that I’m already on her naughty list?”
“Maybe it’s worth it.” For a moment, there’s an earnestness, a vulnerability in his expression, a glance probing at some unaskable question. But then it’s gone.
“Lachlan, haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘Don’t shit where you eat’?”
“Some of the best shits of my life have been in restaurant toilets, so that argument is invalid.”
“This conversation is invalid.”
“Wow, you are so uncomfortable right now.”
I run my hands through my hair. “Yes, I immediately regret telling you any of this.”
“I don’t! This is the best day of my life.”
“Have you never had one about me?”
His smile is sad, almost pitying. He places a hand on my shoulder. “I’m afraid not.”
“Not even a teeny, tiny hand job or something?”
“Please never say ‘teeny’ or ‘tiny’ in relation to my penis ever again.”
“Sorry, obviously I meant a massive, thumping great hand job.” I gesture with my hands about a foot apart, for emphasis.
“That’s more like it, thank you. But still, no.”
“Cool. Can I go die now?”
“You know I am going to be merciless about this, right?”
“Yes, and I’m dreading it. I know better than to give you the upper hand in anything.”
“And yet here my hand is, so, so much higher than yours.” He actually waves it in the air, two feet above my head.
He clocks the expression on my face, somewhere between amusement and embarrassment, and gives me a little punch on the arm.
“Come on, let me buy you brunch. It’s the only polite thing to do after a one-night stand. ”
I roll my eyes but take him up on the offer.
—
After four days of relentless teasing, Lachlan seems to have had enough.
When we spend an entire evening cooking together and he doesn’t once waggle his eyebrows at me while rubbing his hands up and down a comically large pepper grinder, I think I’m in the clear.
At least from his taunts—my own mind has not yet tired of replaying the dream on a loop.
I’m in bed on a depressing Tinder-swiping marathon when there’s a soft knock at my door. I toss the phone aside and pick up my book, opening it to a random place and quickly checking it’s the right side up.
Lachlan swings the door open and hangs there like a sitcom sidekick waiting for his applause.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
He strolls in and flops onto the bed, stretched out and leonine.
You’d think that spending most of my waking hours with extremely fit men would inure me to it, but I can never stop admiring his body.
The gentle curves of his arms, the veins that snake down to his surprisingly long fingers, the little sliver of skin between the hem of his T-shirt and the top of his shorts.
He’s poetry in motion; more specifically, a limerick: clever, concise, bawdy.
“Have you come for some more gloating?” I ask.
“Actually, I’ve come to confess.”
My heart does a funny little flutter as I contemplate all the things this could mean. I take a quick deep breath and steady my voice. “You are a serial killer. I knew it.”
He laughs. “I’m afraid it’s even more serious than that. And more topical.”
“You have had a sex dream about me?”
He turns his head to face me, sheepish grin on his face.
I want to throw a pillow at him. I do throw a pillow at him. “I knew it! You’re such a liar! Days and days of unrelenting torment, you sick, twisted bastard.”
His body is shaking with laughter, his enlaced fingers jiggling on top of his abs. “Now, calm down there, Stripes. I have had a dream about you—plenty of dreams, actually—but they’ve never been sex dreams.”
“Okay, well…cool confession? Glad we got this settled.”
Lachlan turns on his side, propping his head on his hand. His eyes narrow on a loose thread of the duvet cover and he devotes his full attention to picking at it, not meeting my eyes. “Well…”
“Oh my God, who’s been in the Mykonos sun now? You’re beet-red.” I nudge him with my feet under the duvet, connecting with his hip. “Tell me, tell me, tell me. Come on, I told you.”
“It wasn’t a sex dream. Or maybe it was but I don’t remember the sex part, alas.
” He cuts his eyes to me and looks away again.
The tips of his ears are bright red. “It was a couple of weeks ago. We were in bed together, holding each other, and it was, I don’t know, really tender.
Intimate. You reached over and stroked my hair and kind of tugged on my earlobe and I knew it was a thing you always did and it was lovely and wonderful and I couldn’t speak to you in real life for, like, three days afterward. ”
I rack my brain to see if I can remember this silent treatment, and it dawns on me. “Was it around the Chelsea game?”
He nods, eyes still fixated on the thread, on his fingernails, on anything but me.
“I absolutely remember that. I thought you were mad at me and I had no idea why.”
“Nope. Just couldn’t quite look at you with that image…that feeling floating around in my head.”
“Wow. Well.” It’s so awkward in here now, deliciously tense and terrifying. “Tenderness—definitely not how Vogler would do it.”
I can see some of the stress leave his shoulders as he rolls back onto the bed. “No, indeed.”
A long pause stretches between us; neither of us has a hand on the wheel and I have no idea where we’re going to go.
I clear my throat. “So are you, like, in love with me? Is it going to be really awkward now?”
He grins. “I mean, yes, clearly.”
“Okay. Just as long as we’re even.”
He sits up and extends his hand. I shake it. “Even. Good night, Stripes. Sweet dreams.” With a wink, he’s up and off the bed, running through the door just before my thrown pillow can hit him in the back.