Page 22 of The Fear of Falling
“How was the Duomo?”
She rolls her eyes and pulls a piece of chocolate from the bag, popping it into her mouth. “Can we skip the small talk?”
I like her even more when she’s snippy. What’s wrong with me? “Sorry, yes. I want to explain what happened earlier.”
“When you ran away?”
Oh good, she thought it looked like running just like I did. Not embarrassing at all. “I…” What do I say? Years of using my words to build up dozens of businesses, and I’ve got nothing. “I overreacted.”
She lifts an eyebrow a fraction of an inch. “To what?”
“To you.”
The eyebrow drops. “Excuse me?”
“To how much I…” Nope. I’m not going there. I’m not going to tell her that I’m into her and then turn around and tell her that we’re just friends, if that. “I was unfair to you. I knew this was only going to last a week, but I didn’t act like I knew it. I was careless, and you deserve more than that.”
“More,” she repeats, grabbing another piece of chocolate. “In what sense, exactly?”
Okay, yes, I can see the confusion. I could mean any number of things. More touching? Yes. More personal details? Probably not. More honesty? That can be dangerous, but I always tell my clients that honesty and authenticity is their best asset. “I’m not the kind of guy who commits,” I say. It’s true, but it makes me sound…not great. “And I wasn’t acting in a way that fits with that truth. So I’m sorry.”
She seems to process my words, and then she softens. Her shoulders relax, the lines on her forehead smooth, and a corner of her mouth turns up. “Benson,” she says, the sharpness in her tone gone now. “I agreed to keep it all casual. I knew this week wasn’t going to turn into a whole relationship.”
Right. Of course she knew that. I’m the one who got freaked out by a few feelings. Apparently I’m the only one who has a problem here. Here I was thinking I was leading her on, when it looks like I was leadingmyselfon.
So how do I fix this without saying goodbye to her yet? For my own sanity, I need to make sure we don’t have the same level of physicality that I allowed before. Assuming she wants to keep hanging out. I know what I want—definitely not to part ways tonight and never speak again—but I have to leave this up to Avery.
I take a deep breath. “Even so, I was out of line. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”
“So you didn’t want to kiss me?” Her eyes fly wide, and she looks as surprised as I am by her bold question.
I can’t help but chuckle. “No, I wanted to kiss you.” Her answering blush is a reward I don’t deserve, but I treasure it. “Still do. But maybe we…” I can’t bring myself to say the rest of that sentence, no matter that I should.
“Hold off on that?” she finishes for me.
“Yeah, that.” But now I’m fixated on the idea of kissing, and my eyes slide to her lips.
She smiles, making herself more tempting. “It’s probably a good thing if we don’t kiss. I don’t think you could handle it.”
I force my gaze back to her eyes and find laughter in them. “Meaning what?” And why do I feel like she’s feeding one of my usual lines back to me?
Her smile shifting into a smirk, she pulls out another piece of chocolate and says, “Meaning I’m just that good,” before placing the chocolate on her tongue.
If not for that chocolate, I would kiss her right now and show her exactly what I can handle. At the same time, she might be right. This woman is a magnet, and kissing her would pull me in and leave me locked to her side for as long as possible. The thought of kissing her is tempting enough that I almost don’t care that I would leave Italy with a hole in my chest.
I’ve never held on to anything like that in my life.
What has Avery done to me?
I clear my throat and stand.Distance. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, I need to buy you a cannoli because I still cannot believe you’ve never tried one. So we’re going out.”That is the opposite of distance, Benson!
Glancing at her chocolate, Avery gets to her feet and plants herself directly in front of me, her chin raised and a defiant look in her eyes. “No. I’m going to buy my own cannoli.”
Is this her telling me that she doesn’t want to keep hanging out? If it is, good for her. But I don’t like it. “Of course you can buy your own cannoli. You can do whatever you want to.”
“Yes I can. And I’m going to buy my own cannoli. But you can come with me if you’d like.”
Smiling easily for the first time since leaving her at the cathedral, I hold my hand out to her and feel something fall into place when her fingers lace with mine. I wasn’t supposed to hold her hand. That was half the point of this conversation, but I can’tnothold her hand. It’s dark out. She could get lost among theother tourists exploring the city. It hasn’t bothered her before now, so it won’t bother her going forward.
