16. Tomorrow
TOMORROW
Fisher glanced sidelong to where Drie sat, swaying gently in her swing with one arm wrapped around the chain her temple rested against. Sensing his attention, she tilted her head back, meeting his eyes with a soft smile that warmed him to his bones, soothing his worries.
He’d been terrified since the moment she’d shown up at the river that evening when he thought she’d let him go, when he thought he’d lost it all, walking on eggshells in his worry that he’d misstep and ruin this chance she was offering.
But by some miracle, she’d returned, night after night, until things began to feel remarkably similar to the way they had when they’d first met.
Exciting, nerve-racking, and full of promise.
He knew there was no going back to the way things had once been, but similar to the leaves that framed their river spot, darkening into shades of burnt orange and rich burgundy, his connection with Drie was evolving in a genuine, elemental way.
On those evenings when the chains beside him would rattle softly, making his heart flip in his chest with her arrival, they’d talk through those new things they’d learned about one another, exposing the more vulnerable details they’d buried before.
And as the weeks slipped past like the fading leaves that fell gently around their swings and danced away on the water’s surface, they left the secrets and the hurts in the past.
Drie told him about her parents. She spoke of her sisters and the grandmother who’d fought to keep them together.
And in the lighter moments, she shared tales of Nellie, the sister who could always be found right in the middle of some nefarious scheme.
The latest of which resulted in her very nearly being arrested for making a tree fall onto her ex-boyfriend’s prized BMW.
From what they’d all been able to gather, she’d actually gone to the trouble of establishing a fully operational, yet fake, tree-cutting business to gain access to the specific tree she had targeted.
But given how the business cards led to a fake email, managed through a library computer, the conversations had all been conducted virtually via a payphone, and no payment had been collected…
the only clue the police had to go on was a voicemail the ex had saved of Nellie saying she’d make him regret what he’d done.
However, once Nellie sent over a security video recording of her attending a gym class, securing her alibi, the charges had been dropped.
None of them bothered to consider whether Nellie had any sisters who’d be willing to lie on her behalf, much less a look-alike sister who spent every free moment of her day in that same gym.
Fisher had thought it all sounded ingenious, but shook his head gravely in solidarity while Drie fretted.
In return, he laid out the history of his childhood and all the crazy shenanigans his cousins got into.
He spoke of the sordid, embarrassing relationship he had shared with Rena and all the ways that experience had colored his expectations.
And it proved cathartic, in a way. Not just the act of finally sharing those details and resolving the lingering questions between them, but simply speaking the thoughts aloud, getting them out of his head.
And with every truth laid bare, it felt like the distance between them grew smaller, the boundaries less firm.
He noticed every sign. When her smiles came easier.
When she started to tease him in conversation, and grew more earnest in their talks.
Every stolen second where he caught her studying him in his peripheral vision, and every time she met his eyes with that heated, unguarded expression.
He could feel his very bones chomping at the bit to respond.
To engage. But…that had never been his role.
He’d been so wrapped up in his head during their relationship, so worried about taking advantage, that he’d boxed himself into a situation where she’d always been the one to initiate the physical contact.
The one to stretch out a hand and intertwine their fingers while they sat by the river.
To step in for a hug or wrap a hand around his neck, pulling him in for a kiss.
And now, in those delicate, tenuous moments they shared, he didn’t trust himself to act.
His mind often returned to that morning they’d shared in the library office.
The way her eyes had flared in response to his touch, her fingers folding into his shirt as she shared his breath.
The tension that existed in that moment had become the focal point of all his favorite fantasies, imagining how things could have progressed if he’d just bent forward and closed the distance.
In many ways, he felt trapped in the same place he’d been before, drowning in his restraint and want.
But this time, it wasn’t his own fears holding him back.
It was the plea she’d made, outside the diner, asking for them to move slowly.
And the promise he’d offered in response—his vow to wait, as long as she needed.
But much like the way his body reacted, pulling her close, independent of conscious thought, when he’d noticed the tears in her eyes that day in the library, or after he’d overheard the whispered words she’d shared with his mother, he wasn’t thinking when he stood, pulling his arms from his coat as soon as he noticed the shiver roll through her body.
His hands gripped her shoulders once he’d wrapped the jacket around her small frame, rubbing gently. “Let’s head back,” he said, working to keep the disappointment from his tone. “It won’t be much warmer in your apartment, but you at least have blankets there.”
Drie laughed. “It’s not this cold in my place,” she said, laughing even harder at his dubious expression while they fell into step together. Her laughter trailed off, and her voice sobered when she continued, “It’s uh, Thursday, you know.”
“I know.” Fisher was always conscious of Thursdays. He usually went straight to the gym after walking her home, regardless of the hour, in an effort to forget the way he used to spend those evenings snuggled up on her couch.
“We haven’t watched a show in a while,” she hedged, pulling the collar of his jacket tight in front of her neck as they stepped out of the shelter of the park and back onto the sidewalk, her building looming ahead. “Would you maybe—“
“Yes.” His answer was quick and gruff, needing no consideration.
Her expression softened, the line between her brows smoothing as she cast him a quick smile. “Alright.”
“Alright,” he parroted, his heart already racing in his chest as he followed her up the steps of the building and into the elevator.
“Go ahead and grab a blanket,” Drie said once she pushed open the front door. “I’ll get some popcorn.”
Fisher was quick to do as he was bidden, snagging the monstrously fluffy comforter she kept stored in the top of the hall closet. She always mocked him for it, but he had no shame.
That was, until she settled into her spot beside him, enveloping him in her vanilla scent and lighting up the nerves along his thigh where her leg settled against his.
Almost immediately, he recognized the mistake he’d made.
The park had allowed them a certain degree of separation that he hadn’t known he needed.
It had been easier—much easier—to keep his hands to himself when he thought it was just friendship and lust holding his interest. Back when guilt and regret guided his actions, keeping him in check.
But now, knowing it was love that made him ache to hold her, to taste her, to please her…that it was love driving him to claim her for his own…that his actions didn’t have to be temporary. That maybe those moments could last forever—
Knowing all of that, it was exorbitantly more challenging to keep his focus on the TV and not the soft skin of her shoulder, now that she’d shed her sweater.
His eyes drifted up, toward that spot at the base of her neck where her pulse fluttered—the spot he knew would make her moan with only the softest press of his mouth.
His gaze continued along the column of her neck, pausing to appreciate her rosy lips, just begging to be kissed, and the very tip of her tongue that darted out to steal away the sweet, buttery residue the popcorn left behind.
He caught the groan in his throat, but the air left on a sigh, and Drie turned, her smile fading as her pupils dilated.
The heat in her eyes alone brought him to the very brink of his sanity, but it was the way she breathed his name in the space between them that snapped the tether holding him in place.
His mouth wasn’t soft when it slanted over hers, but she met him in the middle, her hands already exploring, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
He let her pull it off, too intent on the trail he was following down her neck, the sweet taste of her skin and the sound of her moans, to give it any more thought than the momentary annoyance of jerking it over his head.
He returned quickly, heady with the taste of her, desperate for more. He pressed her back against the cushions, deepening the kiss until he felt her fingers pulling at his belt, and he froze, reality returning in a rush.
What am I doing? he thought in horror.
The first time she invited him back upstairs, he had her pinned down on her couch in no more than ten minutes. He was supposed to be taking it slow. He was supposed to be letting her set the pace.
Fisher jerked back, his chest heaving as he scrambled to his feet, quickly putting distance between them. Fucking lizard, his inner voice seethed. So much for trust.
He braved a quick glance at her, then turned away, unable to bear the uncertainty in her expression as she tracked his movements around the couch.
“Fisher—”
“I—I need to go,” he mumbled, refusing to look back. “I’ll, uh, see you for lunch tomorrow?”
“Yes, but—”
He didn’t dare wait. Didn’t dare look back at her disheveled state, her swollen lips. He strode for the door, snagging his shirt off the floor as he went. “I’m sorry, I—just—I’m sorry,” he repeated, his eyes on the handle as he pulled the door open.
“Tomorrow,” he stated again, not even sure what it was that he was promising with the word, only knowing that with his mind spinning, his heart thundering, and the taste of vanilla staining his tongue…He simply didn’t have the words.