Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Alicia
It was almost painful to admit, “You know, I want to be annoyed that the only snacks you had was cheddar cheese, apples, and peanut butter, but I’m really happy with this right now.”
“Are you sure? You gave me a lot of shit just a few minutes ago.” He shoved a peanut butter slathered slice of apple in his mouth.
“How do you not have a single potato chip in this place?”
He leveled narrowed eyes at me. “Because I ate them all. What do you do with your chips?”
“You’re not being very considerate of your guests.”
“You noticed all of those,” he retorted sarcasm dripped from every word.
I lifted an eyebrow at the plate on the coffee table between us. “There was that woman at the clinic before my appointment a couple weeks ago.”
Groaning, he pressed the back of his head into the headrest of his recliner. “Don’t remind me.”
We’d moved into the living room after he’d plated the snacks.
The quilt was draped over my lap, and it was even better than I’d remembered—a warm, comforting weight as if there was more than fabric and thread holding it together.
Furgie was curled up on the sofa next to me, watching his cat perched on a window shelf on the other side of the room.
She’d only whined when he’d hissed at her, but we kept her leash on her lying on the cushion next to me.
After Remi had ensured that I was settled, he’d turned his attention to the fire in the stove.
“So, what happened there?” I sounded like the answer didn’t matter to me, but if I was being fully honest with myself, it did matter.
I didn’t want him spending the rest of his life pining over me or anything, I would just like to not be unimportant to him.
There were invisible marks all over me, divots in the essence of who I was because of him. I just wanted to be there on him too.
“Nothing.”
“Okay, don’t tell me. It’d probably be weird to have that conversation, anyway.”
“No, really. Nothing happened there, and if you knew Lily her reaction wouldn’t be that surprising to you.”
“I could never put myself out there like that,” I said. The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Of course we were thinking of the same thing.
There was one time I’d put myself out there. A single moment where my pride came second to my love for him.
A door closed in my face, leaving me out in the rain and wind.
He opened his mouth to speak, and panic cut hot and sharp through my nervous system—I didn’t know what he planned to say but I wasn’t ready for it. Instead, I asked, “What the hell was up with your scrubs that week?”
He barked a laugh. Just like that we fell back into the easy place we’d been a moment before.
Too excited for whatever story he was about to tell, I shifted to lean toward him.
“Nora.” Shaking his head, he went on, “A couple of weeks ago, she challenged me to a push-up competition—”
“And she won?!”
“She did. She didn’t wipe the floor with me or anything. I would like to say that I’ve dealt with my toxic masculinity, that I’m enough of a feminist for my pride to not take a hit. But it did. I was drunk, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Anyway, she’s a beast and incredibly competitive. So, I got on my hands on the sticky dance floor of Benji’s Place—”
“That’s the bar in town, right?”
“Oh, yeah, there was a decent crowd of onlookers.”
“What you’re saying is if I needed protecting, I’d really want Nora to break through my door.”
He splayed his hands out in front of himself. “Hold on, now.”
“So, because she beat you, she got to pick your scrubs for a week?”
His nodding transformed into the shake of his head. “Yes.”
“That’s rough. But Lily still wanted you after that.”
“Who’d a thunk it?”
I snorted. The smile on his face pressed creases into the corners of his twinkling eyes. A dusting of stubble made him appear both ruggedly handsome and a little vulnerable. Navy sweatpants draped across his long thighs.
I ignored the little voice in my head whispering, I’d’ve thunk it.
If it weren’t for our history, I’d have a hard time not falling in love with him.
For a moment, the only sound was Furgie’s gentle snores and the crackle of fire. Something passed in the air between us. A crackle. A sizzle. A spark. And suddenly, I couldn’t look directly at him anymore.
Maybe I was more tired than I’d thought, it was the only explanation, because I would never . . . I’d learned my lesson; he’d taught it to me. I didn’t yearn for a man the way I used to for him, and there was no way I’d ever go back there.
He cleared his throat. “Wanna watch something?”
“Yeahforsurethat’dbeawesome.” My words jumbled together in their haste to get out of my mouth, anything to appear unaffected.
“What are you into these days?”
“Are you watching Sovereign?”
He scoffed. “Am I watching Sovereign?”
“There’s a new season out.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Let me guess, you’ve watched like four or five episodes, and you’re savoring it, and really taking time to think through all of the hints.”
“You know me.”
I do know you.
“God, I hated that. I just wanted to rot on the sofa and watch all ten episodes until three a.m.”
“I’m gonna say you haven’t even started it, yet, because you’re focused on your work and it’s this little prize you get to give yourself when you’re done with this project.”
“It is more than a little prize; it is a big one. I take this show very seriously.”
“So, you don’t want to watch it tonight?”
I pressed my fingertips to my lips, staring at the black television screen. “I kinda really want to watch it,” I muttered into my fingers.
“Okay, fair warning.” His chair creaked as he leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs. “The first episode ended on such a cliffhanger, I watched the second episode that same night.”
“Oh shit,” I breathed.
“Yeah.”
“Turn it on.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
He laughed. The sound warmed me from the inside.
The first episode we watched was packed with so much weird ass plot, that I forgot where I was. I audibly gasped at the end and turned to find Remi watching me with a lopsided grin.
“What is happening?” I demanded.
“Ready for bed?” He snorted at my unimpressed expression. “Next episode, then.”
By the time we turned the television off, I was almost on the same episode he’d left off on, and the fire was red embers and black ash. I took Furgie out to go to the bathroom while he got his bed ready for me.
Rubbing my eyes, I yawned a goodnight on my way up the stairs to his room.
The sheets were clean, the fit snug and cozy the way only clean sheets could.
He was on the sofa, but he was also still here, lingering deep in the fibers of his pillow.
Just past the clean scent of his detergent was him—that smell I would know anywhere.
That I’d never forget. That sat heavy and hot in my core.
It pulled and tugged at me, urging me, reminding me.
As if his insinuated presence wasn’t enough, flashes of him lit behind my eyelids.
His sweatshirt sleeves pushed up as he shoveled my driveway in the morning sun.
Steam burning off the skin stretched over his corded forearms. The fabric on his back clinging to his muscles flexing with each scrape and fling of snow.
The memory of my hands on his bare skin as he moved over me.
I tried to change the channel in my mind but found a different memory instead. The moment when he burst into my apartment wild, raw, and dangerous. Midnight eyes searching over me, assessing. His switch to easy smiles and conversation—to knowing me as if time between us hadn’t passed at all.
I shifted my hips, the ache between my thighs too uncomfortable to ignore.
I will not get off in my ex’s bed.
I didn’t.
But I also didn’t sleep well all night.