Chapter Twenty MAE
Chapter Twenty
MAE
It was kind of miraculous, but I actually enjoyed dinner.
It was really good to spend time with Rowan again without that giant secret between us.
I appreciated that he understood it was my story to tell him, and I could’ve kept the secret if I chose.
I knew it would have gotten in the way for us in the long run, though.
That was the very reason I shut him out back then. Of course, that version of me had been younger and a little less bitter. After what happened, I hadn't known what to do other than batten down the hatches, literally and figuratively.
Rowan insisted on staying a full hour after he finished his beer because he was driving us home. When we got to my house and he walked me to the door, I was pretty sure he was going to leave without kissing me.
“Oh no you don't!” I reached for his hand as he started to step back.
He tried to play it off. “What?”
“You're not leaving. Not without kissing me,” I declared.
He stared down at me in the darkness. It was cold enough out that I shivered.
“Inside,” he ordered, pointing at the door behind me.
I quickly fished my keys out, and we walked in. After greeting Sassafras, I turned and looked at him. “We already kissed. Why are you not kissing me good night?”
For the first time tonight, Rowan looked a little lost. “Mae—” he began before stopping abruptly.
“No, no, no, no!”
“No, what?”
“Don't let this be an excuse to pretend you can't touch me. We had a really good kiss in the parking lot, and then the other night in the kitchen.” I flapped a hand in the direction of the kitchen.
He shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “But—”
Great, just freaking great. He couldn’t manage more than a single word without sputtering. “But, what?”
“What?”
“Oh, my god. You know I'm not some innocent virgin.”
“Mae! Don't talk about it like that.” His eyes were kind of wild.
“Rowan, don't.”
This was firing me up in a weird way. I wanted to scream, and I wanted to cry. But more than any of those things, I wanted to kiss him. So I did.
I grabbed his jacket and yanked him to me as I stepped closer. His back thumped against the door when I leaned up and pressed my lips to his. It started out kind of messy because my aim was off, and my mouth landed on the corner of his lips.
Leaning back, I murmured, “See, it's fine.”
Rowan held still, his eyes searching mine. The air fairly crackled with tension, and then we were kissing again.
He didn't treat me like I was fragile, but unfortunately, he did put a stop to it. At which point, I was seriously hot and bothered. “Are you really going to go home?” I protested between gasps.
“Yes,” he said with a sigh.
I could feel the hot press of his arousal against my hip. “Rowan, come on.”
He looked pained. “This is our first date, since our last three dates. I don't want to take advantage.”
“I want you to take advantage. I want this,” I demanded.
He stared at me. I could hear the clock ticking loudly in the background.
“Mae, I—”
“Rowan, I'm asking you to stay. If I have to strip you naked myself, I will.”
As if to emphasize the point, Sassafras hissed in the background from the couch. Rowan's eyes widened. “She’s kind of cranky. I think she was mostly napping the last time you were here,” I explained.
After another stare down between us, he pushed away from the door and shrugged out of his jacket. I unzipped my jacket, taking them both and hanging them on the hooks by the door. We took off our boots.
“I even wore dressy boots,” I offered.
His eyes bounced down and back up to mine. “I noticed. They're hot.” He smiled, a sly glint in his eyes.
“Really?”
“Everything about you is hot, Mae. I had such a crush on you back then. You were that girl for me.”
“Well, that's good because you were that guy. You still are,” I replied, surprising myself with my honesty.
“Why were you so mad when you saw me here at first?” he asked, his gaze sobering.
“I don't know. It just all got tangled up. Seeing you meant I had to deal with why I stopped being friends with you.”
“I felt like you sliced me out of your life with a surgical knife.”
Since I was already being honest, I didn’t stop. “That's pretty much what I did. You were still roommates with him, and I didn't know what to do.”
“Only for like another month, and then it was the end of the semester.” He shook his head. “I'm sorry. I get it. I do. I'm just relieved it wasn’t something I did even though I kind of wish it had been.”
“Never,” I whispered.
I was getting lost in the brilliant green of his eyes, and he kissed me again. One kiss blurred into the next and then the next. I didn't know how long we stood there in the living room kissing until he lifted his head and said, “Bedroom.”