Page 26 of Made Over by Meredith

He shook his head. “She’s working late tonight. We’re grabbing a drink later.”

I heaved out a sigh. “I’m ordering pizza. I like veggie.”

“Sounds good to me.” He plopped down next to him, his hip and thigh against mine. I tried to shimmy over, but his couchwasn’t very big, and there wasn’t really anywhere else for me to go.

I ordered the pizza and dropped my cell phone. “It’ll be here in half an hour.”

He lifted the remote toward the television, and turned it on, toggling through a bunch of streaming services until he found the one he wanted, settling on what appeared to be some kind of science fiction show. I asked about before I thought better of it. “What’s this?”

“Monarch. It’s Godzilla.”

We watched it for a few minutes, but it held no interest for me, and I stood, unable to be near him and his heat and smell anymore. Aiden stayed where he was, knees out, one arm relaxed on the end of the sofa, the other thrown along the back, where I’d been sitting, as he watched me tour his apartment. I pretended not to notice.

I dragged my fingertips over the trinkets littering his desk in the corner of the living room, the random gorilla glue stick, the ring of keys, the stapler, bottle opener, and tiny Rubik’s cube. His bookshelf with filled with a mix of video games and books, a complete box set ofDune, as well as a few more Rubik’s cubes. I held one between my fingers, scrambling it up, then tossed it to him. He bumbled the catch, and I laughed until he held the toy in his long fingers, turning it from side to side, studying it. Then he twisted, his fingertips rotating the rows and columns, solving the puzzle in a few seconds.

“How’d…how do you do that?”

He tossed it back to me. “Math.”

I huffed a laugh, absently spinning the colors around. “You say that like it’s easy.”

He shrugged. “Not necessarily easy, but math is just following steps. Anyone can do it. It’s all patterns. Once you find it, it’s easy.”

“It’s easy,” I murmured, then tossed him the cube once again. He solved it in no time, but this time he didn’t throw it to me. Merely set it at his elbow as he went back to watching me.

I moved in a complete circle, folding my arms over my chest, the awkward one now. I was inhisterritory. “So…” I started, aiming for an indifference I didn’t feel. “You need second date pointers, eh?”

He stayed quiet as I followed the line of the kitchen counter to his cabinets, helping myself for a look around. I found a can of La Croix and popped the top. “You need to up the tension. You know you get along, you know you like each other, now you need to make it known.”

“You want me to come right out and say it?” he asked, watching me with those knowing eyes of his.

“Yes and no. At this point, you’re looking for a relationship, and she needs to know that, but also, you want to keep her hooked. Tell her you think about her and look forward to seeing her, but also keep it immediate. Flirt with her. Figure out how she likes to be touched and do it.”

He tipped his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, every woman is a sucker for certain moves. Figure out which ones your girl likes and hit them over and over.”

He nodded to himself a few times, his focus on the television, the volume on low. There was no way he could’ve actually been watching. Then again, he was full of surprises. He probably could hold a conversation with me about flirting while also watching whatever this Godzilla show was.

“How would I even figure that out?” he asked after a while.

I refused to sit next to him on the couch and instead propped myself on one of the stool at the kitchen counter. “She’ll let you know. Lean into you. Breathe harder maybe. Touch you back.”

He dragged his tongue along his lower lip, biting the corner for a moment. “That what you do?”

“I’ve never really thought about what I do.”

“You like your hair played with,” he declared, like it was a fact. Which it was. I did like my hair played with. But I wasn’t sure how he knew that.

I nodded anyway.

“You play with your hair a lot,” he noted as I dropped a length of my hair from where I’d unconsciously started wrapping a few strands around my fingers. He stood, meeting me by the counter, standing in front of me, so I had to tilt my head back to keep his gaze.

He wrapped my hair around his fist, pulling taut, and used it as well as the hand at my elbow to urge me to stand up. Then he closed the few inches between us, his mouth on mine.

I’d almost—almost—forgotten what it was like to kiss him. I’d worked hard to not imagine what it had been like last weekend, with his hands on his waist, and the hard length of him against my belly as he pressed my back against his car, his tongue soft yet demanding against mine.

Like it was now.

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