Page 25 of After Tonight

“Lucy’s not here.” But he snagged a clean T-shirt from the basket of clothes he’d left on the sofa.

“You need to practice what it will be like when she is,” Riley said. “You might spend the majority of your time with women half-naked, but you need to do things differently with a real girlfriend.”

He stepped into the kitchen, still just holding his shirt. Why? Because he kind of enjoyed making Riley uncomfortable? But she didn’t seem uncomfortable exactly. She did seem a little jumpy though. Like she was trying to avoid looking at him. Which automatically made him want her even jumpier.

He crossed the kitchen floor to get closer to her. He couldn’t explain it other than to say that there had never been a time he could remember, from the time she was a little girl to now, that he’d been around Riley Ames and hadn’t wanted to get her attention. Even if it was negative attention.

He’d always chalked it up to their like-a-brother-and-sister relationship. But he was absolutely questioning everything about that right now. Because her nipples were pressing against the front of her tank top, and he loved that reaction more than any other he’d ever gotten out of her.

“Seems like I might spend even more time without clothes on with a real girlfriend,” he said.

Riley spun away as he got closer and started pulling items out of the grocery bag. “You have to do normal things with a real girlfriend,” she said. “And most normal things require clothes.”

“Normal things like what?” He watched her set flour, sugar, eggs, and milk on the counter. She didn’t think he’d have those things? But then he thought about it. He wasn’t sure he did have flour.

“Things like…” She trailed off and gave an exasperated sigh, then turned, seeming reluctant. “You can’t have sex with a woman every single time you’re alone together.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have to get to know her. You have to talk. You have to do things together like make meals, and watch TV and movies, and talk about pop culture and politics and current events. That’s how you learn about what kind of person she is and what she likes and doesn’t like. Otherwise, you won’t really know if you like being together or not, and if you should keep seeing her or not.”

Yep, that made sense.

“Okay.” He pulled his shirt over his head. “But the physical stuff is important too.”

“I think you’ve practiced that plenty.” Riley turned away and started opening his cupboards and drawers.

He would help her find whatever she was looking for, but first he wanted to finish this subject. “But we have to be comfortable together physically,” he said.

She turned back to face him quickly. “We do?”

“We…as in me and my real girlfriend,” he said, but his thoughts were on all of the times he and Riley had been together in swimming suits and pajamas, when he’d had his shirt off, when she’d gotten soaked with water balloons and her white T-shirt had been plastered to her body, when she’d pulled off a tank top and replaced it with a T-shirt in the back of Kyle’s car. He remembered thinking, “Hey, Riley has boobs,” when he’d glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of her pale pink bra. But it had been only a few seconds. And it had been Riley. It hadn’t mattered.

She’d slept in a tiny tent with him and Kyle while camping. She’d swum in the pond with them. She’d leaned her head on his shoulder in the backseat and slept all the way home from a Dierks Bentley concert in Lawrence, Kansas. He’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out of a party at Damon Jenkins’s house when she’d gotten puking drunk and started telling Carrie Reynolds what she really thought of her.

Yeah, they’d been physically close and not-fully-dressed several times together. And yet, now she seemed jumpy. And he couldn’t really focus on the fact they were talking about another woman together.

“I get that it has to be more than physical,” he said, his thoughts still scattered. “But it has to be physical too.”

Riley took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah. Of course. There has to be physical attraction too. And you have to want to be close to each other, touching, stuff like that.”

“So, seems like Lucy might need to get comfortable with the physical side.” His eyes flickered to Riley’s mouth, and he felt a stab of surprise and desire at the same time. “Cooking breakfast and talking about current events while also touching and being half-naked.”

He’d really like to pull the strap of her tank top down her shoulder and kiss her right there.

The thought occurred to him and didn’t shock him as much as it should have. Especially considering they were talking about him doing all of this with one of her best friends.

Riley gave him a frown. “Really? Already?”

“Already what?”

“You’re already changing the rules. You can’t get through one morning without wondering how to do things your way instead of hers?”

He opened his mouth. Then snapped it shut. Dammit. The thing was, he hadn’t really been thinking about Lucy. If she was more shy and would take longer to warm up, of course he’d take it slower. Not make their first breakfast together half-naked. But he hadn’t been thinking about Lucy.

Still, she had a point. “Okay, okay.” He looked at the table where they’d be eating. Fine. He could be taught. He headed for the backyard and returned five minutes later with a handful of the rhubarb that grew along his back fence.

Riley watched him grab a plastic cup from The Stop, the convenience store on the edge of town, and stick the stalks inside. He set them in the middle of the table.

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