“Oh.” She looks up from her phone. “It doesn’t matter. It’s probably mean. When I'm nervous, I have a bad habit of word-vomiting all over the place.”
“Nervous?” I ask.
She glances at her phone again. “About the job. The counseling stuff.”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
She leans back, and maybe it’s the angle, or the way the light’s hitting her, or just her natural perfection, but her breasts shift around in the most mouthwatering way. Pressed into her bra, begging for me to free them, to massage them and suck her nipples until she gets close from that alone, her needy nipples hungry for attention….
And then I’ll drive her to a shivering finish between her legs.
“It does matter,” I say, cutting in as if interrupting my own thoughts. “To me.”
She sighs. “I was just going to say…well, I’m sorry….”
“Lucy, you don’t have to keep saying that.”
“I thought you like the attention. I mean, I’ve seen the photos and everything. No judgment. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m…apologetic?”
She laughs softly, and I find myself smirking. She’s asking about that side of my life, and her gorgeous youthful cheeks are flushed, and she’s tripping over her own sentences. So freaking cute.
I’ve been around enough women to know this is a sign…not that I ever reciprocate orcouldthink about anybody else now Lucy’s in my life.
But it’s a massive assumption to think just because she’smaybephysically attracted to me that she wants the rest of it.
Marriage, kids, and a home with me.
The life.
“You don’t have to be…apologetic,” I tell her, as a Beatles track begins to play. “You’re right. From the outside, it seems that way.”
“From the outside?”
I didn’t think I’d ever want kids again until I met you…
Though it rises, I push that thought away and aggressively it tries to burst from my lips. I know what she means about the word vomit, except it’s new to me, and nothing I want to say is sick.
It’s right. It’s us.
“Yeah,” I say. “So, what’s on the menu?”
“A change of subject, apparently.”
I laugh again.
It comes so easily with Lucy. It’s not just what she says, but that near sassy tone in her voice. There’s nobody else who can make me feel this way, or ever will.
I’m reminded of it every time she smiles, or makes me laugh, orshelaughs.
What would a kiss do? How certain wouldthatmake me?
“Still,” I say. “Is the food here good?”
She frowns. “I guess it’s fair. You don’t want to be badgered about your private, romantic life. I’m….” She grins, the frown going away like a dark cloud in the wake of the sun. “Apologetic.”
“It’s complicated,” I tell her, wondering if I should just tell her the truth.
But then Bryce’s voice is in my head.