Chapter 11
chapter eleven
patrice
I walked up to Easton’s apartment feeling all kinds of inadequate.
He’d left my house this morning looking defeated and shamed.
I’d done that with my shitty behavior, and I had to fix it, or I could at least try to make amends.
I knocked on the door twice and then remembered there was a buzzer, but before I could press the button, the door opened.
I’d been prepared for pajamas or sweats, but Easton in denim cutoffs and an oversized University of Buffalo sweatshirt, wearing adorable woolly socks, had an intense effect on me.
I sucked in a breath as I held up the bag of Vietnamese take out I’d picked up from a place Nesto kept raving about. There was a bite in the air, and I thought some pho might be a decent peace offering.
“I brought you dinner.” I shuffled my feet some, and felt awkward as hell as I made myself say the rest of what I’d come here to do. “And an apology.”
For a second, Easton hesitated, his eyebrows furrowed like this turn of events had completely thrown him off. He turned his head to the side and looked behind himself, as if the food had to be for an imaginary roommate, then he stepped out into the hallway.
I was not being invited in. Okay, I deserved that.
I backed up to give him space and his eyes were giving me no quarter. “You don’t owe me anything.” The finality in his tone was not easy to hear.
I hoped he could see how fucked up I felt about how things had ended with us this morning. I hoped he knew what to do about this, about us, because I was lost.
I was about to try to tell him that when he sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked tired. “I’m really tired, Patrice.”
I didn’t know how the rest of his day had gone, but I sure as shit knew I had not made it any better.
Groveling or apologizing for fuckboy behavior was not exactly in my wheelhouse, either.
I usually got out before shit got anywhere near complicated.
But I was doing this, because if anything, I wasn’t going to let Easton think that he deserved to be treated like he didn’t matter.
“I’m not sure why I thought showing up at your house with two tubs full of soup was a great idea, but I figured I at least owed you some dinner,” I said in a friendly tone that didn’t get me more of a reaction. If his intention was to make me squirm, things were certainly going as planned.
His expression still gave me nothing, and the desperation I felt made me think of something Nesto told me.
I had to stop pretending, because right now, all I could think of was that I would do anything to make him smile again.
To have him talk to me like he wanted me here.
The urge to plead for another chance was on the tip of my tongue; I didn’t even know what I’d ask for.
I just knew I wanted more time with him.
We stood there in silence. Easton’s eyes on me, and his gaze completely serious. “Why are you really here, Patrice?”
I squirmed under his scrutiny, the way his entire body seemed to be asking the question.
He didn’t have to make this easier for me.
So far, he’d spent every minute we’d been together accommodating my hang-ups.
Smiling through all the mixed signals I kept sending his way, unrelenting in his honesty about how he felt about me.
He told me again and again that he wanted me.
That the rest we could figure out as we went.
Such a dangerous proposition for me, to jump in with my eyes closed.
Easton made me want to be heedless, to take a chance on him.
I hated myself a little bit for getting him to give up on us.
Tonight I was getting the full treatment from Assistant District Attorney Easton Archer. He just stood there, his arms crossed over his chest, leaning against the wall by his door, patiently waiting for me crumble under his stare.
He was going to make me say it, and really, I owed both of us that much. If I’d gotten anything from Ari’s words today, it was that I needed to stop acting like what I felt for Easton was something that was just happening to me.
I opened my mouth to say some other asinine reason for why I was standing here, but before I started, I closed my mouth.
He deserved better than this, than me making shit up just to keep from admitting to why I was here.
I was deliberate in every other part of my life.
I had to stop acting like my heart didn’t deserve the same intention.
“That’s not true.” I shook my head as he stared at me. “I mean, it’s true I thought you might be hungry. I’m not here just because of that though. I wanted to see you. And apologize for acting like an asshole…again.”
This finally got me a reaction in the form or a slightly raised eyebrow, but still his lips were sealed.
But now I was committed, so I finally told the truth.
“I always want to see you. I always want you.” Admitting felt like a dam broke inside me because suddenly I could not stop talking.
“It sort of freaks me out how much.” Easton parted his lips like he was about to say something, but I had to get all of this out.
No matter what happened between the two of us, I needed to make sure that Easton heard this.
“I’m tired of fighting myself about wanting you, Easton. ”
He gave an exasperated sigh as he peeled his back off the wall and moved toward me, one hand raised, palm up, as if to stop me from talking.
Resigned to the fact that I had fucked this up, feeling like there was a hole in my chest, I handed him the food.
“Have a good night, Easton.”
I was about to turn around and walk down to my apartment when he grabbed my wrist with his other hand.
“Oh no, no, no.” When I turned to look at him, those green eyes were blazing, but there was just a little bit of humor in his voice. “No, Professor Denis, you’re not leaving now. I was going to say that it sounded like a conversation you’d rather have inside my place.”
The relief at those words was enough to make me lightheaded, and when I looked at him, a much smaller but no less heartening version of the smile I’d been desperate to see was firmly in place.
“Come on.” He ushered me in and I didn’t give him a chance to change his mind, quickly stepping into his penthouse. I pointed at the glass of wine on the coffee table next to a mountain of papers.
“You were working.”
He waved at the pile of papers dismissively. “I was supposed to be working, but I was sulking instead,” he said matter-of-factly as he took the food to the kitchen.
I never again wanted to be the reason for Easton to feel unimportant.
Because even if I wasn’t ready to say that out loud, with every passing day, he was becoming almost essential for me.
If I’d been brave enough, I’d tell him exactly that.
Instead I walked over to where he’d been pulling takeout containers out of the bag.
I came to where he was, just inches away.
We were so close I felt his heat, I wanted to wrap my arms around him, envelop him with my body, but I knew there was more I needed to say.
I whispered into the space between us. “I’m sorry,” I said as I ran my thumb over his lips. They were perfect, red and fleshy.
Easton swallowed hard and I could almost see his pulse racing.
There it was again, that pull. In so many ways I felt like with Easton and I, words sometimes were unnecessary.
I bent my head and he lifted up to meet me.
He clasped both hands behind my neck and kissed me like his life depended on it.
I was ready to forget about dinner…talking.
When it came to Easton, moderation and control just did not apply.
He shook his head and pulled back just as I was making my way down his neck.
“No.” He just had to say it once, and I stepped back, wondering what had happened.
When I saw him, with his bruised lips and mussed hair, I had to fist my hands to keep from grabbing him again.
His chest was heaving, but when he spoke, his tone brooked no argument. “Nope. We are not doing this again.”
He waved a finger between us. “This is our problem, as soon as we’re together, we end up fucking.
” He held up a hand, those whiskey and moss eyes thunderous.
“We’re going to act like whatever is happening here is worth working on.
We clearly can’t stay away from each other, so let’s start acting like we mean it.
” The exasperation in his voice—there was something else.
Easton was done letting me run the show and seeing him calling the shots was fucking sexy.
“We’re talking about important things happening in our lives right now and trying to understand each other.
You say you want my friendship, then that means actually getting to know me. This hot and cold shit ends now.”
He looked mad salty and I wanted to wreck him. This Easton was somehow even more irresistible. There was no coming back from this. That was completely clear. Surprisingly, I was totally fine with it.
I felt my body relaxing and the intensity of the evening, of the whole weekend, started to diffuse a little.
I smiled at him then. “All right, Counselor, so you’re feeling some type of way.
I hear that,” I said as I grabbed the big tubs of broth.
“Why don’t I warm up this food for us.” I waved a hand around his kitchen.
“I think I can figure out where to find stuff. You go relax and we can talk while we eat.”
He looked genuinely bemused by my sudden surge of domesticity, but he didn’t argue, just nodded and went back to the couch. I fussed around the kitchen for a few minutes while he put away his papers and sipped from his wineglass.
When I walked out of the kitchen with two steaming bowls of soup, he got up to help me. “Here, I’ll get spoons and chopsticks. I also have a bottle of Sriracha around here. Let’s eat in the living room.”