He just looks at me.
“I knew you were different, when we were kids,” I don’t know why I admit, but I feel like maybe if I put this out there, the tension I feel when I’m around him will ease. This will put us in friendly mode, and I need friendly mode with him. “You made me feel different. I had to be careful with you. But even with the guys that I dated that seemed more harmless, it was bad news in the end. The good times aren’t even really that good. I didn’t want that to happen with you too.”
He frowns then, leaning forward, his expression unreadable but at the same time, his eyes sharp with interest. “Any particular reason they weren’t worth it?”
“Because the guys don’t get me. It’s like every time I blurt out the wrong thing I want to shove something into my mouth. I feel mortified when I see them get embarrassed. I feel odd and like I just don’t fit. I just don’t fit as the second part of a relationship, I’m just too guarded. Maybe I’m too independent. My friendship with you was more important to me, I realized. At the time.”
More silence.
More nerve-wracking green-gold stare. “Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”
“Yes. I wanted you to know why I never wanted to go there with you. I was scared that you were too valuable to me.”
I fall silent, and Aaric says nothing, and there’s still so much I want to say that I can’t seem to find the way to as he keeps waiting…for me to say more. There’s all this tension in my body—the opposite of what I thought would happen happened. Our naked bodies are sweating underneath two mere towels.
I’m fully aware of every inch of this man, of every inch of my own body and what his nearness does to me.
I want to steal my hands under his.
Climb them up his muscled thighs, and touch him, and make him hard for me as I kiss and caress him. Make him want me like he once did.
Make him try again because this time I won’t even hesitate, I’d go for it—recklessly and without restraint because I never want to go to bed with my what if to dream up a thousand kisses from him that never came because I said no. So one kiss has turned into a thousand, and the way I wanted him has multiplied by those thousand kisses, and none of them are real, but they’re real enough to haunt me, to make me want it, to make me wonder how he would kiss me.
If he’d have been gentle and sweet to me, or rough and a little crude and dirty, or maybe some way I couldn’t have even imagined.
“So did you let me in here to listen to more of my plan, or are you planning to discourage me from wanting to do business with you?”
“I let you in here for reasons I can’t even comprehend.” He shoots me a vexed look, his expression bleak and dire.
I laugh, figuring he’s playing with me. “I can’t lose this chance, Aaric. I really want this. It’s easy for you to string me along when you’ve never lost anything at all.”
“I’ve lost something.”
It’s not just the words, but the tone he uses that makes me sit up straighter. I’m too surprised to do more than drink in the stormy, shadowed look in his eyes. Shit. I hit a sore spot. Way to go, Bryn. Nice way to endear yourself to him.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Fuck. I’m sorry too.” He scrapes a hand down his face, sweat glistening all across his gorgeous body.
“So what was it? That you lost.” Suddenly—belatedly—I remember his mother and I want to slap myself for speaking so abruptly.
“Somebody,” he says.
Your mom, I think. “You loved her.”
“Aside from my mom,” he adds. “Yes, but I never got the chance to love her. She died when she was born.”
Shock makes my eyes flare wide open. Whaaat? “You had a daughter?”
He meets my gaze and I see everything I need to see in his eyes.
“And your wife?”
“Not wife. Friend.”
“What happened?”
“She got depressed, left my life, fell in love later, got married. We talk occasionally.”
“Oh. I’m glad.” I glance away, then back at him. “I’m sorry about that.”
He nods as he looks at me.
I just stare back at him, suddenly understanding more.
My heart is doing weird things in my chest. I want to embrace him. I want to run away from him. I want to open up and talk more about our losses. I want to pretend we’ve never lost a thing.
I swallow.
He leans back, the move sort of implying he doesn’t want to speak more about it.
Patting my face with the towel, my breathing fast as my body keeps on sweating and I keep spewing out feelings as if they’re attached to my sweat.
“See, sometimes I’m feeling lonely like nothing will ever turn out my way. I feel different, like a red ink stain on a page full of gold dots.”
“I know what you mean. I used to feel like I was a tear on a page, not a red ink stain though.”
“Why? Like you tore the page?”
“Yep.”
“Like you’re the tear on a page?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, that’s awful. Are you okay?”
“Obviously I’m not.”
“Yeah. Sigh.” I laugh.
“Go on. You were saying,” he prods.
“Oh nothing, only that all these feelings go away when you’re close.”
Shadows darken his eyes, as if my comment gets to him.
“Why is that.” His stare becomes intense enough to singe me to my bones.
“Because another feeling comes in when you’re close and it’s all I can feel. Like a glass of oil is overflowing with water until the oil overflows and then it’s just the most fresh and hydrating water.”
“I’m the water in your glass.” He starts to smile in bemusement, but his gaze doesn’t lose one single bit of its intensity.
I laugh. “You fill my glass. I suppose you’re the water too.”
He grins even more, like this is the best compliment he’s ever gotten.
He leans forward, his gaze level with mine. We’re both glistening with droplets of steam and sweat, but his stare is the most heavenly thing I’ve ever seen look at me. So serious, so sure. “I had no idea,” he says, the green in his eyes more vivid than ever, “how much I missed you, bit.”
It’s so intense I drop my gaze and pull it back to his, my stomach sort of turning in on itself. “Why. Do I fill your glass too?”
“Not sure.” He winks, smirking. “Maybe you just fill my well, girl.”
I laugh, and he chuckles, and we sort of spend the next minutes in silence, our smiles lingering on our faces.
By the time we leave the sauna, I feel good. Physically, I’m relaxed, but emotionally, I’m in a bit of chaos/confused mode. Christos offers to drive me home, but I decline. An hour later, a message appears on my phone.
Tomorrow. Next appointment. 8 p.m. @ Peasant (Nolita). Be there.
I’m so there.
Midnight text to BFF:
Do you remember when you stole into the guys’ locker room to chase after Lyle?
Becka: No. I promptly forgot that when the coach found me before Lyle did and called my parents about what a perv I was.
Me: Okay, forget that part. Imagine that you’d found Lyle. In nothing but this tiny towel. Like a fig leaf, that small.
Becka: Okay, what’s going on?