Page 96 of Not Fooling Anyone

I glance around the room, noticing my surroundings for the first time, and spot an open doorway toward what looks like a bathroom. I leave her for a moment, grabbing a wad of toilet paper to clean myself off with, and rejoin her on the mattress, kissing my way up her body.

She stirs, a satisfied smile on her face as I reach her lips. “That was amazing,” she whispers.

I grin, in total agreement with her. “Give me a bit and we can go for round two.”

She makes a soft noise of pleasure. “I love you.”

I go still, hope blooming in my chest. So these feelings aren’t one-sided?

But just as I’m debating how best to respond, an expression of dawning horror crosses her face. “I didn’t mean that,” she says, jerking to the other side of the bed, a gulf forming between us. “I don’t know why I said it.”

Oh.

My stomach drops, a distinctly unpleasant sensation this time, and I wince, her denial stabbing me.

“Shit,” she mutters, scrambling off the mattress. “Fuck.” She grabs at the nearest article of clothing, which turns out to be my shirt, and pulls it on over her. She crosses to the bedroom door, flinging it open, and escapes to the living room.

I sit up, half worried she’ll race out of the apartment, but there’s no sound of the front door opening. I scour the floor for my boxers, slipping them on as soon as I find them, and join her out there, finding her pacing the length of the room, biting at her thumbnail.

She looks up as she notices me, her face crumpling, and I rush to her without a thought, hugging her tightly to my chest.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles between sniffles. “I fucked everything up again.”

“You didn’t fuck anything up,” I assure her, stroking her hair, trying to come up with some kind of reasonable explanation. “It was the heat of the moment. You were vulnerable. Everyone says things they don’t necessarily mean.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

Yeah, but I was half thinking it.

“Lexie, I’m not mad.” Maybe a little disappointed, if I’m being honest with myself.

She steps back, wiping at her eyes. “What are we even doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean with…” She motions with one hand between us. “With us.”

I release my hold on her, lacing my hands behind my neck, not knowing how she wants me to answer. Maybe we weren’t on the same page after all. Same book, but different chapters. “That depends on what you want.”

“What doyouwant?” she whispers, her eyes wide, almost like she’s afraid of what I’ll say.

I’m tired of beating around the bush, though. At some point, I have to lay my cards out. “I want you to be my girlfriend. For real.”

She’s silent, frozen in place a foot away from me, her bottom lip quivering.

“I’m just being honest,” I tell her, needing to fill the deafening silence. “We can take things slow. As slow as you want. No labels.”

Please don’t let her shut down over this.

“Ethan…” She crosses her arms over her stomach, hunching into herself. “I didn’t think we were there. Like anywhere near there. I was just coming around to the idea that there was something between us.” She sniffs again, running a hand under her nose. “I’m so messed up. You deserve someone better. Someone who knows how to be a girlfriend. Someone who isn’t so… scared.”

I force myself to stay where I am, to not reach for her if she doesn’t want it. “Do I scare you?”

She takes a shuddering breath. “Not you as a person. More as an… idea. I trust you. More than I think I’ve ever trusted anyone. And that scares the hell out of me.”

“Why?”

She takes a moment to answer, the words seeming ripped from her. “You could hurt me.”

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