Page 70 of Lyrical

“You’reconfused?”

Okay, this is definitely stupid.I took a deep breath. I needed to woman up. “All right, never mind all this right now. You said you had something to talk to me about?”

I wasn’t looking at his face, but I could guarantee that there was a whacked-out expression on it, and I was the one who put it there.

“There’s a mandatory teaching seminar I’m required to go to at the end of May.”

A teaching seminar? That’s what I used my anal conversation for?

“Oh, is that all? I thought….”

“Thought what?”

“Nothing. Now, about the seminar. You do that stuff all the time. You made it sound like a big deal.”

“It’s in upstate New York.”

“Oh.”

“For a week.”

“Oh.”

“The school tries to send us every year. We didn’t know each other last May, so you had no idea. And this year with the scheduling conflicts, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen at all. Until I received word yesterday.”

“Is this for only certain teachers or…?”Please don’t say it, please don’t say it.

“It’s for all the teachers at the school. We go right after the term ends.”

Fuck.My insides were having an origami contest. I wanted to go back to the butt sex. Take it dry. Whatever. Just not think about him going away for a week. With Cassie.

“Wow, a week.” That’s all I could say.

“I know. It sucks, but I’ll be back in plenty of time for the wedding. I just want to make sure you’re okay with it.”

I picked up my head, resting my chin on his chest. “I kinda don’t have a choice, do I?”

He smiled, brushing away the hair that had fallen into my eyes. “I wish it weren't required, and you’re welcome to come with me. Although, the school doesn’t allow guests since they’re footing the bill. We all stay at a conference center because of the long days. It’s pretty intensive. I could find you a place to stay nearby, and we could meet whenever I had a break.”

“No, Chase. That’s silly. This is your job, and you need to be focused on it, not worrying about me.” I trusted him, even if I didn’t trust Cassie. I had to put on my big girl panties and prove that to him. “I’ll miss you like crazy, but you know what they say about absence.”

“Yes, I experience it every time I leave you for the night.”

“Hmm… maybe that’s a good thing, then? You love me more when you can’t be around me.”

“I love you more regardless, Jillian.”

“You know, I want you to start staying over again. It’s been long enough with Daniel, right?”

I nibbled on my lips. Part of me didn’t want to care at all. I was an adult, and it was my house. Daniel was an adult temporarily living back home. I was the one with the authority to call the shots. But in the end, it did matter what he thought because I didn’t want to screw anything up. And I didn’t want it to seem like one big free-for-all under my roof with me endorsing sleepovers between consenting adults.

“You don’t look very sure,” he said. “We’re already taking a forward step by getting together tomorrow night. Let’s just take it one day at a time and go from there, okay?”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“So, are you going to tell me why you brought sex into our conversation before?”

“See, you are interested in that. First you got hard, and now you’re mentioning it again.”

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