Page 38 of Leave

He gestured with his sandwich. “Eating without having to guard my food from the cats.”

“Oh.” I laughed, more than a little relieved. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not used to eating without someone biting my fingers.”

“I mean, I can help with that if you want.” He snapped his teeth.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, no, thanks. Arrow’s teeth are bad enough.”

“Ugh, right?” He chuckled. “Believe it or not, he was worse as a kitten.”

“Was he?”

“Oh my God, yes.” He tsked, shaking his head. “He was the bitiest little shit.” Holding up one hand, he added, “The first few months I had the cats, I was covered in cuts from all of their claws, but also a lot from his teeth.” As he went for another bite of his sandwich, he grumbled, “Ungrateful gremlins.”

It would never stop being cute as hell that he was wrapped around their tiny paws. Yeah, they’d bitten and scratched him all to shit in the early days, and Arrow still managed to bite or scratch both of us when he tried to get to our food, but Nolan obviously loved them. There really was something ridiculously adorable about how he fawned over them. And, for that matter, how they worshipped the ground he walked on.

“How are they doing, anyway?” I asked. “With us being gone?”

Nolan took a swig of Coke. “Anderson sent me some pictures. Said they’re being hellions, but they seem to be fine.”

“Wait, you got pictures of the cats and you didn’t show them to me?” I huffed dramatically. “Asshole.”

He laughed and grabbed his phone off the nightstand. After tapping the screen a few times, he turned it to me. “There’s four.”

I put down my sandwich, took the phone, and thumbed through the pictures. Of course, they were super cute. Arrow was mauling one of Anderson’s boots. ShiShi was perched in a window, probably trying to murder a bird with her mind. Velcro was, unsurprisingly, curled up in Anderson’s lap. The fourth shot was all three of them at his feet, gazing up at him with wide eyes and probably begging for something he was eating.

It actually made me kind of homesick to see them. I missed their antics and their faces. Sighing, I handed back the phone. “Think they’ll forgive us for being gone?”

“Probably.” He put the phone back on the nightstand. “Nothing an order of sushi won’t smooth over.”

He was probably right. And damn, now I missed Okinawa sushi; the stuff we got in the States just wasn’t the same.

Ah well. We’d be home soon enough.

After we’d finished our sandwiches, we turned on the movie we’d queued up, and I shamelessly leaned on him while we watched. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and if I was honest, I barely followed the movie because I was savoring this so much. It was like now that we’d finally started touching for real, we didn’t stop. Not even when we were both stuffed from dinner and sex wasn’t going to happen.

Was it too much to ask for us tokeepdoing this? Like, after tonight? After this trip? Maybe I was just craving human closeness after severing ties with my family, but I didn’t think that was the whole story here. Yeah, I still felt raw over leaving my family, but what I was getting from Nolan right now had nothing to do with them. Closeness. Warmth. Casual affection. Neither of us was trying to wind the other up; just touching for the sake of touching.

I loved it.

As much as I’d been wanting more with Nolan for a while now, I hadn’t realized how much I’dneededmore. How much I’d needed this.

How do we go back to being casual fuck buddies after this?

All too soon, the movie ended. But that didn’t mean the night had to be over, did it? We were already naked in bed. Why shake things up?

I twisted around enough to meet his gaze. “We should probably get some sleep before tomorrow.” I put a hand on his sheet-covered thigh. “Do you want to stay in here tonight?”

Nolan tensed so subtly, I almost missed it, and he shook his head. “No, I… I’ll, um…” He gestured toward the wall dividing our rooms. “What time do you think we should get moving in the morning?”

“Oh. Uh.” I cleared my throat and tried my level best to keep my disappointment out of sight. “Maybe… nine? Ten?”

Avoiding my gaze, he nodded. “Okay.” His arm loosened around my shoulders. “I should, um…” He gestured at the wall again.

I didn’t argue. I also didn’t understand why it hurt that he wasn’t going to stay. We could fool around and cuddle in front of a movie, but we couldn’t sleep next to each other?

We’veneverslept next to each other. Get a grip.

At least he kissed me before he left. He even let it linger for a moment, making me wonder briefly if he was reconsidering.

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