Page 78 of I Did Something Bad
“Why”—I lift a challenging brow—“did you agree to stay?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. I know why he stayed, just like he knows why I asked.
I bet,I think as he lifts my chin up with one finger so I have to look right into his eyes.You would be the best sex I ever had.
“Can we… go to bed?” I ask, not recognizing my own voice. When hesitation flickers across his eyes, I give him a reassuring smile. “I mean just… go to bed. Can we change into pajamas and crawl under the covers and maybe put onSVUand you… hold me until I fall asleep?”
Can we pretend for one night?is essentially what I’m asking.
And in spite of his obvious wariness, he nods with a gentleness that tells me he understands.
I don’t bother with sexy lingerie, instead emerging from my wardrobe in a pair of gray silk sleep shorts and a giant white T-shirt with several toothpaste stains on the front. But the speed at which Tyler’s mouth drops, and the visibly uncomfortable way in which he fidgets as he sits up and pulls back my side of the covers to motion at me to join in—it sets off a sharp yet delightful pain behind my solar plexus.
He’s stripped down to his boxers, and as I place my cheek against his warm bare chest, hand grazing against his stomach when I reach for the remote, so many jolts zing through me that my mattress might as well be covered in electric fence netting.
“Hey,” I say into his chest as I pick an episode. “Tell me a secret.”
He considers it for a long time. “I cried at the end ofMoana.”
I bark out a surprised laugh and pull back so I can see his face. He’s grinning, and when he grins like this with his full face, he looks nothing like the next 007 and everything like who May was talking about: the boy with the big, unrelentingly soft heart. “That isnota secret,” I say. “Everyonecried at the end ofMoana.”
“Hmm,” he says. His thumb slides under my shirt and makes a sideways swiping motion just above my waistband. “I… am worried you wanted to sleep with me tonight but then you changed your mind, but you’d already told me to stay so you felt bad about—”
“Tyler.” I stop him by placing a finger on his lips. When he kisses it, I all but let out a moan. “None of that is true.”
“You didn’t want to sleep with me tonight?”
I mean to sayNo,but what comes out is “No?”
Of course, he catches the inflection at the end. “Liar,” he says. Then, smile easing, “So whydidyou ask me to stay?”
Instead of answering, I trail my finger up and across his face. At one point, it’s like it takes on a life of its own, achingly tracing every single one of his features before returning to his lips. “Isn’t it obvious?” I ask, and his face scrunches up in a way that is socuteI want to grab it and kiss it.
His smile expands so wide, it looks like it’s going to hook onto his ears. “Wanna play a game?” he asks.
“Always,” I whisper deviously.
“Ifthis—” He tilts his chin at me, and then tucks it back toward himself. “—couldbe possible, what kind of couple do you think we would be?”
“Oh, the kind that makes out literally everywhere.Have you seen us? We’rehot.”
He laughs, then asks, “In a booth, would we sit across or next to each other?”
“Across,” I say immediately. “Tyler, we’re not sociopaths.”
“Would we… have nicknames?”
“No. I don’t do nicknames. The occasional ‘sweetheart’ or ‘honey’ is fine, but no cutesy inside-joke nicknames. I don’t like them. I’m not a toddler.”
He nods like he’s taking this seriously. “Noted.”
“Where would we go on our first vacation?” I ask. I know we’re way beyond playing with fire now; we’re in the middle of a several-miles-long burning coal walk. And it should hurt, the pain should be making every single one of my nerve ends scream with delusion—but Tyler’s still here beside me, and so it doesn’t.
“Somewhere quiet,” he says after a thoughtful pause. “Maybe a small village in Vietnam, by the mountains or—”
“Woah there, buddy.” I shake my head, horrified at even the thought. “I don’t do villages.”
He flashes me the half smile. “You don’tdovillages?”
