Page 106 of From Best Friend to Bride
My eyes landed on the door between our rooms, and I froze. The mantra of ‘shit’ repeated in my mind again, and I forced myself to sit up, staring at it.
In horror.
What if…
No.
No, it was fine. Absolutely fine. These walls were thick, and my bed was on the opposite side of the room. The toy itself was more of a gentle zzt-zzt than an outright buzz, so there’s no way he would have heard it. I’d moaned into the pillow, too, so even that had been muffled.
I swallowed and got up, tiptoeing across the wooden floor towards the door.
It was quiet.
Phew.
I went back to the bed and picked up the toy, then looked between it and the open drawer. “Gonna have to be careful with you,” I murmured to it, tucking it away. “Or I’ll come so hard I’ll form a second personality.”
22
DELILAH
“You’re avoiding me.”
Fred stilled his hands, mid-fold of his trousers, and peered across the room at me. “I’m not avoiding you.”
“You are,” I insisted from where I was leaning against the doorframe. “We’ve barely seen each other for four days.”
“You’re the one who decided to sleep in another room. You left a note saying it would be best if there was some space between us, so I’m merely respecting your wishes.”
“By not talking to me at all!”
He put the trousers in his suitcase with a sigh and looked at me—properly this time. “Deli, we’re operating on different schedules. It’s a no brainer that we won’t see each other when you’re working the closing shift three out of four days and I’m gone hours before you wake up.”
I huffed, folding my arms across my chest. “That’s not the point. Even when we have crossed paths you’ve barely said a word to me. You don’t even come into the pub to see me at work!”
“You said you wanted space.” He gave me a flat look as he pulled some underwear out of his drawer. “I’m giving you space.”
“You’re doing it wrong.”
“All right, fine, I’m doing it wrong,” he replied, just about hiding a smile. “But you don’t get to be mad at me when you don’t even know what you want.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I knew what I wanted, but the words died on my tongue. He was right. I didn’t know what I wanted right now.
It wasn’t that I wanted space. It was for the best. Our feelings towards one another had gotten a little complicated, and I didn’t know if it was just the novelty of our new relationship confusing things or if this attraction that we were both feeling was genuine.
Either way, he’d had a point when he’d said I was too important to flippantly have sex with. That was why I’d moved rooms. I didn’t want to accidentally jump him, after all.
“Just… Don’t ignore me,” I mumbled, looking down and scuffing my heel against the floor.
His sigh echoed through the room, and within a few seconds, his socked toes came into my line of view. He cupped my chin, tilting my head up, and met my eyes. “I wasn’t trying to. I’m sorry if it felt like that.”
I nodded slightly. “I’m sorry, too. I mean… I didn’t lie. We do need some space. There’s just too much of it now.”
His lips tugged up on one side, and the warmth of his little half-smile washed over me with a comforting familiarity. “I agree. I was waiting for you to take the lead on it, but perhaps that was wrong.”
“No. You’d have just messed it up.”
“That’s why I was waiting for you.”
