Page 63 of Happy After All

I scrunch my face and open the door.

Thank God it’shimand not some rando, because I’m only wearing a robe.

He shaved. He’s in fresh clothes. He looks new and glorious, and not like the last vestiges of the night are still clinging to his skin. I happen to know, without checking a mirror, that I look a wreck.

“Good morning,” he says.

“Morning,” I respond, moving away from the door, making it clear he’s allowed inside.

He takes the hint and comes in.

I feel defenseless. In my robe, completely naked beneath. He’s wearing armor, and not the kind he often does. He is enshrouded in taciturn distance. Rather, he looks like a normal—albeit an extraordinarily handsome—man I might meet anywhere. A man who could have done anything last night. A man who probably didn’t have world-destroying sex.

I say nothing because he’s the one who came here.

He’s the one who has a plan.

If I say something, there’s no telling what it will be. I feel I would have no control over the words that might tumble out of my mouth. I don’t trust myself.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says.

I lift a brow. “About the sex or the abandonment?”

“The abandonment. I’m not sorry about the sex, even if I should be.”

“Good. Because I’m definitely not sorry about the sex.”

I haven’t decided if I’m sorry about him leaving. I could cope with it at the time. I recognized the need for a little bit of distance then.

Right now, though, I feel a little bitrawabout it.

“Is that diner in town any good?” he asks.

If he’s using me as a brochure, I’ll punch him. Especially since he’s never shown any interest in my brochures before.

“Get Your Kicks?” I ask. “Yes. Though even if it weren’t, it’s the only diner.”

“Do you want to have breakfast with me?”

I’m surprised by the overture, especially after the way he left last night. Hell, he has a pattern. Get close, pull away. Often aggressively, so this is ... a pleasant-ish surprise.

“We don’t need to go out.”

He looks around the room, and his voice pitches lower. “We do.”

I blink, and my stomach pitches sharply. “Oh. Oh. I need to get dressed,” I say.

“I’ll wait outside.”

He’s trying to avoid sexual situations. He’s trying to put distance between us without being an asshole. I don’t really want him to do that.

Something bold overtakes me then; I’m not sure what it is. I’m not sure if it’s bravery or insanity. I’m not really sure I care. I put my hands on the belt of the robe and undo it. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

I turn away from him, my heart pounding. I’m wondering who this woman is. I guess she’s the woman who threw caution to the wind last night and kissed this man, took him to her room, even knowing it was going to be sex and sex only. Even knowing that I struggle with it.

This wasn’t like anything else I can compare it to.

Not to the previous one-night stand I attempted to have, or to any past relationship. Not just because it was fantastic. Because I feel so different.

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