I was still hanging out in my office, though I’d stopped being productive quite some time ago.
She took a seat on my sofa and studied me like I was being particularly interesting. “Aren’t you the belle of the ball?” she asked sardonically.
She studied me some more.
I just knew she was thinking up new insults for me.
I sat down.
She was such a sassy piece.
“I am,” she agreed.
Oops, I’d said that out loud.
“It’s far from the worst thing you’ve said out loud today.”
Oops, that too.
“Why were you gone so long? What were you doing?” I asked her. Against my will it came out as a drunken whine.
“Avoiding your father, obviously.”
“If he bothers you, I’ll rearrange his face,” I told her confidently. I’d gotten into several memorable physical altercations with my asshole dad, and I’d been winning them since I was seventeen. The ones before that, well, I figured they didn’t count. My dad figured otherwise, because when we got to grandstanding, those were the only victories he could boast about, when it came to me. “And if he touches you, so much as your fucking pinkie, he’s going to wake up in a hospital.” The words were a drunken slur, but I meant them down to my soul.
“I can handle myself,” she said softly, shooting me a look that, even drunk, I could see the affection in.
She changed the subject. “Did you meet your word count goal today?” she asked.
“What will you give me if I did?”
“I’ll let you sleep in your bed with me tonight.”
I stared and I couldn’t tell if what she’d said was making me feel more sober or more drunk. One thing was for sure, it was making me more deranged by the second. “Excuse me?”
“Just sleeping, to be clear. But the bed is huge, and I saw your legs hanging off that sofa last night. I felt bad. Since you won’t switch, we’ll share.”
“I can’t tell if you’re just messing with me.”
“Of course I’m messing with you, but not just. I meant what I said. Did you meet your goal?”
“I did,” I said smugly.
“There will be a pillow between us at all times.”
“I can work with that.”
“You’re not supposed to be working anything here.”
I ignored that. “Wow,” I was a bit shell-shocked. “Sharing a bed. Is it going to be too much excitement for your virgin sensibilities?”
She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and started to snore.
I knew it would only encourage her, but I couldn’t hold back my laugh.
I tried to sober up after that. I didn’t want to miss one minute of this.
I started to make myself a cup of coffee, but Ro shooed me away and took over.
“Where are my dad and Ida?” I asked her. They’d been pleasantly absent from bothering me for longer than the usual stretch.
“I booked them a nice restaurant reservation and a show on the strip to give you a break.”
“You complete me.”
“Like fire and gasoline.”
“That’s it. Let’s start planning the wedding.”
“Marriage isn’t a joke.”
“Sure it is.”
We were looking at each other, identical expressions on our face in spite of the fact that I was less than sober. She handed me a cup of coffee, and I drank it dutifully.
I might have drifted off briefly. I woke with a start, not wanting to miss a thing.
I blinked a few times, and she was suddenly at my side, tugging on my arm.
“C’mon. Up and at ’em. I can’t carry you.”
“Carry me where?”
“To bed.”
My body followed her without needing any permission from my brain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AS SOON AS we got into my room I threw myself on the bed, reaching my limbs out to take up as much room as possible. “How huge is the bed now?”
The sound of her muffled laugh was music to my ears.
She took care of me in much the same way I’d handled her when she was drunk, with patient attention.
I kept my eyes closed and let her tuck me in.
Silence reigned for a time and when she spoke it made my breath catch in my throat.
“You’re not him,” she said with quiet vehemence. “You’re nothing like your father.”
I felt a little lost, my mind warring with how what she said made me feel, how deep and fundamental of a cut it was to have her talk to me like that. Like she cared about me. Like she believed in me. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked her.
“Because I think he has you convinced that you’re the same, and you’re not.”
I looked at her and our eyes locked, me lying down, her sitting at my hip, leaning slightly over me, and we shared a moment of almost painful intimacy.
Of course I ruined it. “Is it uncivilized for me to ask you how soon you’d like to be fucked into the mattress?”
She took that better than I’d expected. “Impossible sex fiend,” she said lightly and walked away.
She was settling down on the other side of the bed when I asked, “Are you really not the least bit attracted to me?”
“Not even a little bit. You’re hideous.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Prove it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let me kiss you.”
“Excuse me?” she sounded genuinely shocked. Me talking about sex didn’t faze her but a kiss gave her pause. She understood me too well.
“I will not excuse you. Just one kiss.”
“Excuse me?” she repeated.
“Just let me kiss you once, and then tell me you don’t want me. Then I can actually believe you and move on from this obsession. You can touch me too, though you don’t have to. You call the shots. Let me kiss you once, and you get to decide what comes next.”
“No sex,” she said, like it was an absolute.
“Whatever,” I said dismissively, like I wasn’t even perfectly consumed with wanting that. “There’s plenty to do before you ever get to sex. Things I’m particularly good at.” I came up on an elbow and wagged my eyebrows at her.
“Only one kiss. Nothing else.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t be so hasty. A least let me kiss you before you go making big decisions like that.”
“You’re drunk. We can’t go there when one of us is drunk. That’s one of your rules, right?”
“You’re getting that all mixed up. I can be drunk.”
“Because you’re a man?”
“Because I’m me. Because I consented before I was drunk. Because I’m always willing where you’re concerned. Everything’s on the table for me when it comes to you. Carte blanche.”
Like she hadn’t heard one word I’d just said, she just reiterated stubbornly, “One kiss. And I will do the kissing. You have to lie there and just take it.”
I felt a bit unhinged by that, but what I said was, “Whatever you like, cupcake.”