Page 27 of After Tonight

“That’s very sweet.”

“Is it?”

“Of course.” She laughed and dropped her arms. “You don’t know that?”

“So being romantic is really just doing thoughtful things,” he said.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Then this will be easy. I’m a very thoughtful guy.”

She snorted at that. And he realized that yeah, she would snort. He was very thoughtful. To everyone but Riley. Because he wanted people to be happy and feel good. He wanted Riley wound up.

That realization seemed to hit him right between the eyes.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want her happy. But while he spent his time making the town a better place, making people’s lives a little easier, with Riley, it was different. He liked to give her a hard time and get her going. Why was that? Why was she the one spot he wanted worked up in his otherwise peaceful, relatively carefree life?

That was…interesting.

“You realize that having multiple types of coffee creamer for your overnight guests’ morning coffee is also sweet, right?” Riley asked.

He frowned. “How did you know about that?”

“The girls in the bar that first night,” she said.

Damn, those girls had spilled a lot.

“The whole idea is making them feel better about…whatever. And saying goodbye in the morning can be awkward. The coffee makes it better.”

Riley nodded, still watching him as if she was pondering something serious. “That’s all you really need to do, you know,” she finally said.

“What do you mean?”

“You just have to think about how to make her feel good, make her happy.”

He shifted his weight. Yeah, he got that.

“And you already do that,” Riley pointed out.

“Yes, but the orgasms the night before make the coffee taste even better.”

She didn’t fall for him trying to lighten things. “You do understand this.”

Of course he did. He wasn’t an idiot. No, he was just cursed with a deeply engrained desire to make things better around him. To make things work better, to make people feel better, to even make things look better. The fucking town square’s landscaping was a testament to that. But he also had an allergy to clinginess. He wanted to do things for people because he wanted to, not because they needed him to or expected him to.

Honestly, with his parents, there was really no other way he could have turned out. His father was involved in everything from planning the town’s Fourth of July display to serving on the school board. And his mom didn’t trust his dad any further than she could throw him. She inundated him with texts all day and peppered him with questions as soon as he set foot through the door.

So Derek had learned to balance wanting to take care of things with his absolute unwillingness to have someone on his ass constantly. He made women feel good—beautiful and desirable—he made them laugh, he was sweet to them. Then he got them out of his house and life before they could even begin to think they might have a right to know where he was going to spend his next weekend. A reputation for one-weekend stands and coffee to go had served him well. Those little creamer tubs and to-go cups were the best, most symbolic things he could have bought. I care that you have your coffee exactly the way you want it combined with I wouldn’t want you to spill it while you’re driving away from my house.

“Making a woman happy between the sheets is easy, and then all I have to do is get through coffee,” he said. “That’s not really that much of a challenge.”

“So what you need to practice is doing the sweet thing longer term.”

“Guess so.” And risk the clingy thing. Dammit. He knew that would come. It was unavoidable. A “real” girlfriend, as they’d been referring to Lucy, would come to depend on him. But maybe it was time. Scott and Kyle seemed to be doing okay. Derek would just ignore the cold sweats the idea gave him.

“And you need to practice keeping your clothes on the whole time you’re with someone.”

“The whole time?” And his thoughts were right back on Riley again and how clingy her clothes were.

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