Page 36 of A Moment for Us
He looks to me, and I just shrug. “She’s a tender soul, this one.”
“And you?”
I laugh once. “I’m a frigid bitch.”
He leans in while my mother riffles through her bag as her ringtone blares. “I know that’s not true.” His velvet words wrap around my heart.
“Do you?”
“I do.” Josh lifts his hand, brushing his thumb along my jaw. “We need to talk.”
“Found it!” my mother exclaims, breaking the moment. “I need to take this call.”
She gets up, leaving me to deal with Josh.
“We don’t have to have this conversation,” I assure him.
“I think we do.”
There’s nothing he could say that would change things unless it’s: I love you, want you, and need you to be in my life.
Then, yeah, that changes everything. However, I’m not an idiot, therefore, I know this will not be what comes out of his mouth.
Josh leans forward, his voice low so that none of the walls, meaning the nosey ass people in Willow Creek, hear. “I want you.”
I blink.
“I want you in my life.”
Okay. I might die now.
My breath hitches. If he says the first part, I hope someone can call for an ambulance because I will perish on the spot.
“You’re my friend, Delia. Above all else, I’ve always respected you.”
“Right . . . and you don’t now?”
“No. Yes, I mean, of course I do. I’m saying that I can’t treat you like you don’t matter. Whatever we’re doing, it’s . . . you’re . . . not nothing.”
“I know I should take solace in that, but you fail to realize something, Josh.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
“I have spent the better part of my life loving you, wishing that you would love me back. Then, the day I decide I’mreallygoing to be over you, we have sex. I thought I could do it, but I don’t know how to fully compartmentalize what we’re doing. That leaves me with two options—either I keep you at a distance when we aren’t sleeping together or we stop sleeping together.”
“I don’t like either option.”
And I don’t know how to do both.
My mother returns, a wide smile on her face. “I have to go, can you drive me home, Deals?”
“Of course.”
Josh gets up and extends a hand to help me. I take it because I know if I don’t that’ll cause more of a fight.
“I’ll walk you out.”
Before I can refuse him, my mother loops her arm in his. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
