Page 83 of Follow Your Bliss

Nor was it because of the anguish on his face last night, his eyes full of tears, after he begged me to tell him we were more than just sex.

Although that would live rent free in my head until the day I died.

I couldn’t say no because his happiness was important to me. Because if I could help him, I wanted to. Because we weren’t just sexually explosive, we weregoodtogether. We were…partners.

I curtsied playfully. “I’m happy to be your lovely assistant once again.”

“Awesome.” He pulled off his shirt and tossed it somewhere behind him. After whatever had gone through his heart at the party last night, he was back to his golden retriever self when we got home, sexing me up in a shower romp and curling up around me afterward to sleep.

And today, it was like nothing had happened. But everything had happened. He’d gotten me to admit the truth, and now I had to face it.

Jason wasn’t a One.

And he wasn’t a Two.

He was so much more. I’d been too late to shut the door to my inner heart. Jason had vaulted into that dangerous territory right under my nose, and there wasn’t shit I could do about it now.

He adjusted his shorts to hang a wee bit lower on his hips. His legions of internet fans ate up every extra inch of my boyfriend’s body they could see. But I wanted him to be all mine, like he said he was. And that jealousy was in a four-way fight with my firm belief in his personal autonomy, my unease that his reluctance to reveal our relationship to the world might not only be about StudFinders, and my turmoil over quantifying what I felt for him.

Maybe I could consider him a Two-and-a-Half?

He caught me watching him, and his smile warmed me straight through.

Don’t be a stupid coward, Rose.I knew what his number was.

“Okay. I’m ready,” he said. “Start it up.”

My finger moved toward the screen, but a text message popped up.

“Wait, hold on. You got a text from…‘Do not answer’?”

It began,Hey, it’s Misty.My lips twisted. “From Misty. Oh shoot, how did it get to be this late? She’s coming with your mom before three o’clock mass so I can measure her. Can we—”

“Goddammit,” he muttered to himself, putting his things down and walking toward me.

Two more messages popped up. They began,And maybe after church you can show me…andThe closet offer still stands an…

I handed his phone to him. “Something about a closet?”

If looks could kill, his phone would’ve disintegrated. “This is what I get for agreeing to go to church with my mom. And now she’s coming here.”

“What’s wrong? Are you mad at me? I have to measure her.” My voice was defensive.

“No, no. I’m not at all mad at you.” He breathed out hard, then shook out his arms and wrapped them around me, kissing my forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m mad at my mom, and I didn’t mean to take it out on you.” He stuffed his phone in his pocket and grabbed his shirt from where he’d dropped it, putting it on with jerky movements. “She should never have talked Becca into putting Misty into the wedding when you already had enough work to do on the dresses, and now she’s bringing her to our home.”

My heart thudded once then melted all over my insides.Ourhome?

“I told her I don’t want anything to do with Misty,” he said vehemently, clearly not noticing the Rose-heart-shaped puddle on the ground. “I told Misty to never talk to me again, and I told my mom what she said to me last night. But of course she didn’t believe me.”

My heart sucked back into my body and solidified, only a few pieces of grass and dirt assimilating into its new form. Grass and dirt ofour home. “What did she say to you?”

“I’m not even going to ask you not to get mad, because you have every right to get mad.” He settled his hands on my shoulders and slid them down my arms, taking my hands. “Not long after I broke up with Kasey and came back home, I went out with Misty. Just once.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“The date started out okay, but then the nightmare started. I told her I was celibate, but she was aggressively sexual and disrespectful. I didn’t want any kind of relationship with her, and she gave me so much shit over it.”

Itching powder it would be.

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