Page 67 of Hold Him Like Gravity

Considering Kyle or his cronies might be watching me at any time? “Staying in.”

Rico reached for his phone, finding the food delivery app, and coming over toward me, both of us looking over the options before settling on Italian.

“You’re freezing,” Rico said as his hand grazed mine.

“Yeah, I was, you know… walking around.”

Rico reached out, tugging down the zipper of my jacket, then sliding it off and leading me over to the couch, pulling me down next to him, then tucking one of my hands between his thighs and warming the other with both of his hands.

“Where’d you go?” Rico asked into the silence of my apartment.

“Huh?”

“Errands,” he clarified.

“Oh, the convenience store,” I said.

“You don’t have any bags,” he pointed out, making panic surge.

I tamped it down. “They didn’t have what I was looking for,” I said, again, telling the truth.

“What were you looking for?”

“Oh, I really like dulce de leche ice cream,” I told him. “Not many places carry it.”

I was getting good at telling half-truths.

Considering the predicament I was in, I should have been happy about that. But I really didn’t want to get good at lying. Least of all to Rico, who’d been nothing but good to me.

Rico’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He released my hand to fetch it. I took the opportunity to reach for the remote and start to click through the options to stream before settling on some drama that I’d been meaning to watch but hadn’t gotten around to.

We sat in comfortable silence, bodies close, watching for a bit until Rico demanded I pause it so he could run downstairs to grab the food.

I didn’t stop to think how dangerous it was for Rico to be coming and going from my building until he was out of my apartment. What if Kyle’s guys saw him? What if they got ideas about me stealing more from him? Like those expensive watches or necklaces he was always wearing.

Before I could get myself too wound up, Rico was back with the pizza box and the cardboard box on top, full of meals because neither of us could pick between pizza or pasta. So we’d picked both. But there was also a plastic bag hanging off of his arm.

When I got up to join him in the kitchen to get some plates and utensils, he was reaching into the bag and drawing out six little pints of dulce de leche ice creams.

Completely unbidden, I felt the sting of tears in my eyes at the gesture. Maybe, to some, it wasn’t that big of a deal. But tosomeone like me, who’d never known a man who gave a shit about her wants or preferences, it felt huge.

“Sounded good,” he said, trying to play it off as he turned to stash them in the freezer.

“Thank you,” I said, head ducked as I tried to blink back the tears, praying that my voice didn’t betray my emotions.

“Just ice cream,” he said, shrugging it off.

But it wasn’t the ice cream.

It was the thought behind it.

Theactionon that thought.

That meant more than he could understand.

“Okay, I’m starting to regret not getting the baked ziti too,” Rico said as he pulled the little plastic tops off of our meals.

“We can share. I wouldn’t mind some chicken parm,” I said, handing him a knife and my biggest spoon, so he could portion it out.

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