Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
He cleared his throat. “I’m not tripped up because you’re a man,” he told me, continuing to pace. “What’s messing with me is you being my friend.”
“Stop movin’,” I said, chuckling, “and tell me what that means.”
“I have moves. There are usually moves.”
“Oh God no,” I muttered, lying back on the bed. “I’m so terrified right now.”
“What?” came the mock indignance, and the laughter bubbled up out of me. “This is exactly what I was worried about,” he growled. “You laughing at me.”
“I’m laughin’ at how stupid you’re bein’. Why on earth would you need moves with me? Just be you. That’s all I want.”
“But see, seduction is one thing, and you’re another.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does, though. I can’t mess up and have you reconsider our friendship,” he said, climbing on the bed and lying down beside me. “That can’t happen.”
I rolled my head to the left so I could see him. “No matter what, we’ll still be friends.”
“Not if I break your heart.”
“And why would you do that?”
“You fall madly in love with me, and I meet someone else.”
“Is that what you’re really worried about?” I asked, knowing, of course, that the reverse was true. He was forgetting that, unlike anyone else I’d ever met in my life, I knew him better than myself. His brain had always made perfect sense to me.
“No,” he confessed, his voice cracking.
“What, then?”
“That you could do better.”
Here was the heart of the matter, and I needed to make myself clear. “Do you honestly think there’s anyone better for me than you?”
He closed his eyes for a moment, as if gathering himself, and then sighed deeply and opened them. “No. I’m the best thing for you.”
“I know that,” I said, slipping my hand around the side of his neck, staring into all that melting brown. “So why would I ever look away from you? Why would I ever need anyone else?”
“You’re the only one I think about,” he admitted, his voice hoarse and thick. “You’re the singular person I want to be around all the damn time. I can’t imagine it not being you lying here beside me from now on. But I just, I’ve never needed…anything from…” He stopped suddenly and pushed my hand off him, sitting up, ready to leave the bed. “Forget it. Let’s go get in the—”
“No,” I warned him, and he froze, staring at me. “Lie down.”
Immediately, he settled back beside me, closer than before, his gaze locked with mine.
“First off, we never push our hands off each other. That’s your rule, remember?”
“Yeah, I—I wasn’t thinking.”
“Because why? Why weren’t you thinkin’?”
He inhaled deeply. “This is a lot, right? Us, I mean. Being like this.”
“It’s a lot of honesty. And not more than we normally feel, but so much more than we’ve ever had to put into words.”
“Yes. Oh God, yes.”
I smiled at him. “You sound relieved.”
“I…we met and I liked you right off, then we became us, Ross and McCabe, and it’s been so easy. So seamless. You fit into my life, beside me, like you’ve always been there, and there’s never been a need to put a name to us, to what we are, other than partners.”
“Yes.”
“But now suddenly, with this—and I want this,” he rushed out, to be certain I knew, “don’t question that—but we’re changed.”
“Yes, we are,” I agreed. “And so because of that, because it’s me, you need what?”
He looked confused. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Yes, you do. Tell me.”
His eyes searched my face.
“Go on,” I prodded him.
“I—it’s stupid and—”
“It’s not stupid. What do you need from me that you didn’t need from any of the others?”
He sucked in a breath. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Figure out what I was trying to say? Are you a mind reader?”
“With you, I’m pretty close.” I smiled at him.
“That’s what I mean. You get me, you know me, but because you do, and this is more…see, usually I don’t need to… but with you––”
“You need somethin’ more,” I concluded, certain I was right.
“Yeah. You have to tell me you want me. I need the words. You’re gonna have to say how you feel all the time, and that sounds so weak and—”
“No,” I soothed him, rolling to my side, taking his face in my hands. “No one had to tell you anythin’ before because it didn’t matter, you didn’t care. But now you do.”
His eyes filled fast, and I understood. For one, it was very late, or very early—either way, it had been a long-ass day. And for two, this was new for both of us, a lot of emotion running back and forth between us like current through a wire.
“So you know, I feel the same.”
“You do?” He sounded surprised.
“Of course. It’s all well and good to say yeah, actions speak louder’n words, but we have our voices for a reason, and one of ’em is to tell the person we love what they mean to us.”