Chapter 10
Ten
Lainey
I’m so stunned by his question that I don’t really process him moving closer, not until I’m suddenly surrounded by the heat of him, the scent of him.
Spice and male.
Strength and heat.
Need blooms in my belly, sends drifting fingers down between my legs.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” he says softly, lifting his hand…and then freezing.
Like he wants to touch me…but is stopping himself.
My heart rolls over in my chest.
“It’s all good, Pages,” he says, his hand dropping to his side, stepping back.
Giving me space.
Not pushing.
I nibble the inside of my cheek, that soft feeling in my chest growing. “It’s not that,” I murmur, and part of me wonders what it would have been like to have the courage to step closer, to close the distance between my body and his hand.
“Then what?” he asks as I’m thinking about that.
As I’m wanting it.
“I just…” I shrug. “I’m not going to write it.”
“Why not?”
Yeah.
Why not?
I shake my head. “Because I couldn’t sleep last night, and I was messing around.” His eyes cloud but I keep talking. “It’s not really my brand. Not really a story my readers would like. It’s too dark, too silly, too…I don’t know. It’s just not me.”
His gaze holds mine, head tipping to the side.
And I brace for…hell, I don’t know what.
Maybe for him to tell me that of course they would like it, to minimize my knowledge of my brand and my readers. Maybe for him to ask me to explain how it doesn’t really feel like me…yet that it also feels like a piece of me I’ve neglected for too long.
One I’ve never explored.
One I’ve ignored and shoved down and shut the door on.
“Would you tell me about it anyway?”
My brows drag together.
“Or not,” he says softly. “Maybe we should talk about why you couldn’t sleep last night.”
God, no.
“Or,” he says, his lips quirking as though he can hear that inner thought blasting through my head, “you could explain the state of your desk.”
The hint of challenge in his words has my chin lifting. “What’s wrong with my desk?”
He turns and strolls over to it, studying it as though it’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen.
I follow him over, trying to see what he sees.
It’s chaos, maybe of the organized variety if I’m being generous—several notebooks open and stacked on top of each other, covered with notes on characters or scenes I’m envisioning or snippets of dialogue that I hear, scraps of paper with random ideas that pop into my head.
Eventually they’ll make it over to the bulletin board on the other side of the room, but for now they’re just accumulating on my desktop.
Three cups are shoved haphazardly to the side—three because I need water and iced tea and my smoothie (I try to sneak in my fruits, veggies, and fiber any way I can).
Pens are everywhere, along with sticky notes and random drawings and craft projects that Ollie’s made at preschool.
A nail file and lip balm, a tiny 3D printed version of my most popular book and a picture of Faye, Ollie, and me are dotted around, along with balled-up silver gum wrappers.
“I know where everything is,” I say defensively.
And I do.
Or mostly everything.
His eyes dance as he leans back against the wooden surface. “I’m sure you do.”
I scowl at him. “I’m not sure it’s any of your business what my desk looks like.”
His mouth curves further. “Oh, it’s absolutely not. I just think it’s hilarious that a woman who regularly dusts the ornaments on her Christmas tree and has not a single item out of place—”
“Tell that to Ollie,” I grumble.
“—has a desk that looks like that,” he finishes on a chuckle.
“You know what’s hilarious,” I say, stepping closer and poking him lightly in the chest, “a man who looks like you driving a minivan.”
Something creeps into the edges of his gaze, something I can’t read. But he just shrugs and captures my hand, his fingers running lightly over the inside of my wrist. “I like the roomy interior.”
I snort. “Okay, so maybe I can understand that.”
Light in his eyes instead of the darkness from before.
“But how about you explain why you slept inside that roomy interior last night?”
The light fades and the edginess returns. “Does it bother you?”
Disbelief bubbles up in my chest. “Uh, yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you slept in your car in front of my house.”
“Van.” A shrug. “And there’s plenty of room, remember?”
Temper beginning to fray, I open my mouth.
But I don’t get anything out.
Because his next words take my breath away. “You were worried, and I wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Why are you being so nice?”
Yet another shrug. “I’m a nice guy.”
“You are…but—” I break off, shake my head.
“What?”
“Never mind,” I say. “We should get out there. I promised Ollie we’d go to Molly’s for pancakes.”
“Tell me, Pages.”
“How about you tell me why you keep calling me that?”
“Because every time I talk to you it’s like you’re revealing another page in the most interesting story I’ve ever read.”
I inhale sharply, every cell in my body freezing. “Wh-what?”
He didn’t just say that.
Didn’t just call me—
“I don’t know what I’m doing. Why I’m here.
” He shoves a hand through his hair, sending the long blond strands skittering around his face and shoulders, and it’s almost like now that he’s begun talking, he can’t stop.
“I know I shouldn’t have slept out front.
That’s fucking crazy. It’s just…I took care of some stuff, went back for your car, dropped it off, and went home…
and then I thought about your face when you asked me to stay for a little while and how you were shaking after that guy—” He clamps his teeth together for a moment.
“I thought of you here alone and fuck, I don’t know.
I drove back over here and I just…stayed. ”
He falls quiet, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession.
“You dropped off my car?”
Slowly, his gaze comes to mine. “You needed it.”
So he did it.
Something unlocks inside me—understanding, connection, affection.
Slowly, I reach forward, gently touch his jaw. “Thank you,” I whisper. “For last night. For all of it.”
For staying. For my car. For intervening.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t shrug this time. But it may as well be there in his words. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
“It is to me.”
“You were pissed I told the guys—”
“Because I wanted to do it on my terms.”
He nods, guilt sliding through his face again.
“Which you get,” I say. “And you apologized.”
Owned up to it.
Didn’t try to make excuses.
“I owed you one.”
See?
“So, thank you,” I say again. “For that. For the rest of it.”
He covers my hand with his own. “You don’t have to—”
“I do.”
And we stand there, far too close, far too many things swirling through my mind, my body. It’s a hurricane of confusing feelings, of needs, of the past and the present.
Except for one thing.
A want.
One that’s so strong, so intense, so all-encompassing I find myself lifting up on my tiptoes, leaning in, my lips parting, our mouths so close I can feel his breath on my skin—
The door slams open.
“Pancake time, Mom!” Ollie shouts.