Page 65 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

Finally, after the last aftershock claimed me, my arms and legs went limp. Every ounce of energy I had was gone; I was depleted, drained, totally empty. I was so satisfied I felt drugged. My thoughts were foggy. When I finally managed to open my eyes, Callum was resting his forehead against mine. We were both attempting to catch our breath.

“I didn’t use any protection,” he panted.

“I’m on the pill.”

I had been since we were teenagers, and I still was.

He released my hands and started to push off of me, but I quickly flung my arms around his neck and held onto him. “Don’t, not yet.”

“Afterplay,” he whispered and kissed my nose.

It had been a running joke between us that I wasn’t a foreplay girl; I loved afterplay, which we claimed was a term we made up, but I’m sure it was around before us. The truth was, I loved the weight of Callum’s body on top of me, the scent of him surrounding me, the feeling of our skin on skin with no barriers between us.

This was when I felt the closest to Callum. This was when I felt the most intimate. This was when I felt the most connected to him.

“Afterplay.” I nodded, and I managed to tilt the corner of my tired lips up into a grin. “Only with you. Just you.”

The look in his eyes changed as he rested on his forearms. It went from playful to serious. He brushed the few strands of hair that were stuck to my cheek. “Only me.”

It felt like a lot more was being said in those two words, but there was no way I was going to say them. There was one thing I was going to ask. “Do you have to go soon?”

He shook his head. “I can stay for a while. Matty’s at the movies, and Chloe’s at a sleepover.”

“Ariana was going to ask you in for a drink,” I blurted out.

His brow knitted. “What?”

“That was the school mom I was talking about earlier. She was going to ask you to come in and have a drink when you dropped Chloe off.”

He stared down at me for a few beats with what I could only describe as an amused grin before asking, “You’re telling me another woman was going to ask me to have a drink with her while I’m inside of you?”

Well, when he put it like that, it sounded crazy.

My nose scrunched, and I lifted my left shoulder in a tiny shrug. “I want you to know you have options.”

“No.” His expression grew serious once again as he rested his forehead against mine and rasped, “No. I don’t.”

22

CALLUM

The first raysof sunrise broke through the slats of Nadia’s wooden blinds as I leaned down and kissed her forehead before leaving to go home. She was sleeping soundly in her bed. It had taken every ounce of self-discipline I had to force myself to leave the only place I ever wanted to be, in Nadia’s bed with her in my arms. I straightened and headed downstairs before I did something stupid like strip naked and slide back into bed beside her.

Last night, or I guess this morning, I’d spent hours just holding her. Our song was Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” and that was exactly why I hadn’t slept a wink. I couldn’t. There was no way I was going to waste even a second of the time I had with her on something as useless as sleep. I’d waited as long as I could before forcing myself to go.

My mom texted me last night when they got home from the drive-in to let me know Matty fell asleep and she’d just carried him to bed, which is why I’d stayed as long as I had. But I didn’t want him to wake up without me there. He’d had enough change in his life lately. He was dealing with it fairly well, but I wantedto keep things as structured as possible for him, which meant I needed to be home when he woke up.

Felicity regularly stayed out all night, and Matty never liked it when he woke up and she wasn’t home. It made him feel insecure; I could tell. I wasn’t going to be an irresponsible parent. That role was already taken.

I hadn’t heard from Felicity for a few days. Five, actually. I wasn’t sure where she was. Last I heard, she was still in Bali, but that was nearly a week ago. She could be anywhere now.

As I drove back home, one question kept moving to the forefront of my brain. What did last night mean for me and Nadia? The resolutions she’d made sent a clear message that she wasn’t interested in dating and that she planned on being celibate.

Clearly, we’d broken that rule last night. Did that mean she’d want to break the dating rule? If she was interested in dating, was that the right thing to do with everything in my life so up in the air?

She was the only person I’ve ever loved, but we hadn’t had the healthiest relationship, and last night proved that. I wasn’t convinced anything would have happened with us if she hadn’t seen me and Kendra’s interaction in the Southern Comfort parking lot.

The ice between us had only broken because she’d gotten jealous. What did it say about us that we were walking on eggshells around each other, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room until she got jealous and broke the formality seal? I wasn’t a relationship expert, but I was pretty sure that was a pink flag if not a red one.

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