“The shit you say belongs in a Valentine’s Day card,” I argued, unsurewhyI was arguing when I was coming to rely on the little things he did and said. “In fact, I know you’re lying about not having a sideline with Hallmark.”
His lips twisted. “If I do, it’s only in the section that’s specifically for women called Star.”
I shoved his shoulder. “See?! There you go again with this romantic stuff. I’m not made for it, Conor!”
“Stop whining and take it,” he teased.
Though I huffed, I admitted, “I have a song for you. But you can’t listen to it with me here.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t. And I’m going to go for a nap because I need to let my brain process all the crap that’s happened today.”
Pressing a gentle kiss to my mouth, he whispered, “Go and get some rest.”
“You can join me. When you’re done, I mean.”
His grin was like quicksilver. “I will.”
“We’ve still got seven hours left of the flight so there’s time to sleep.”
His grin died and he groaned, “Seven hours.”
“I’ll distract you,” I promised with a soft smile, shooting him a shy look as I hustled off his lap then got to my feet.
Grabbing my cell, I sent him the link I’d prepared earlier and then moved my ass so that I didn’t have to hear him listen to the sappy song.
He found it easy to say stuff to me that gave me Conor-heartburn. For me, it was much harder.
Even now, knowing he was listening to “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys made me nervous, and I forced myself to use the bathroom then to clean my face and then to dawdle some more until I was certain the short song had finished playing.
Returning to the bedroom, I switched off the lights once I’d clambered into bed and immediately dragged the pillows around me so I was surrounded by their comforting embrace.
That was when I heard it.
Fuck.
I clenched my eyes closed as the song sounded in the background. Growing nearer and nearer. Until it was no longer outside the bedroom but in the doorway.
The melody always tore at me. The words snuck inside and did damage to the thing in my chest that some would call a heart, but I didn’t know what to make of it. It hadn’t done much else apart from send blood around my arteries before Kat and Conor.
Now, it did other things too.
Odd things.
It beat funny when he was near, and I could hear it pounding in my ears if he was kissing me.
That was, I reasoned, how I knew that it belonged to him—because he made it behave out of character.
“You can’t send this song to me and then disappear,” he grumbled.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek rather than answer.
His phone clattered as it dropped against the nightstand, and then the duvet was being lifted and my pillows were being rearranged so that he could be inside the fort I’d made. When his heat spread all the way down my back, I sighed as it surged into the many cold spots that infected me like a disease.
With one arm around my waist and his chin on my shoulder, we listened until the song finished.
“I never imagined you’d like The Beach Boys,” he mumbled in my ear.