Page 69 of Unless It's You
“Did I ever tell you she’s the reason I even agreed to go out with Ben?”
“What?” I freeze my hands on Stella’s foot.
“Gemma told me you were getting back together with a girl from Newcastle. Helen. So when Ben asked me out that weekend, after you and I had... you know.” She gives an adorable shrug. “I thought it’d be best. That you’d just had a slip-up with me.”
Everything from back then starts to become clearer. I shake my head.
“Helen and I were just talking. Yes, we were considering getting back together. But she had a baby at home, and that’s way too complicated for me.”
“Well, shit.”
“I wish you’d talked to me. Maybe... things could’ve been different.” Because after Stella and I kissed, I knew I didn’t want to be with Helen.
“I think I tried, actually, the night Ben asked me out. But you wouldn’t even look at me.”
“Yeah. I was raging after I found out you agreed to go out with him.” Dammit. “I’m sorry.”
We sit in silence. Stella stares at me, sipping her wine, her forehead crinkled.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“You said before you don’t want to have kids. Is that really true?”
“I’m sure, Stella.” Helen’s son appears in my head. Henry’s adorable, and sweet, and I wish the best for him, but I don’t want one of my own. I’d decided that years ago.
“Well, sometimes people say that. And then don’t really mean it.”
“I know.” I reach over and grab her free hand. And wait. Wait for her to tell me about tomorrow night, and why she’s meeting up with Ben. That it’s about a bucket list item she hasn’t told me about.
But Stella says nothing, just chews on her lip. I take her wine glass from her hand and put it with my bottle on the coffee table, then climb on top of her, gently easing between her legs, not putting my weight down, just feeling us touch.
I support myself with my hands on the cushion and bury my head in her neck, placing gentle kisses in a trail from the crook of her neck to her collarbone. She breathes loudly and arches her chest toward me.
“That’s not going to happen with me,” I say, pausing the kisses. “What you see is what you get. I’m just a grumpy arse who can’t stand being away from you.”
“I can’t stand it either,” she says, then wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me down against her. We fit perfectly together, like the two final shapes in a thousand-piece puzzle. Warmth cascades throughout my whole body, not just my groin. There’s no other place in the entire universe I would rather be than on this couch, with Stella smiling beneath me.
I love this woman. Fuck.
That’s about the most inconvenient thought that’s ever entered my mind.
28
ETHAN
Saturday, 27 July
The knock on my door comes twenty minutes after Stella leaves.
She must be coming back to tell me about meeting up with Ben. That must be it. After last night, this morning, after this week... It’s hard to believe we have secrets left between us.
Except therearesecrets.
Like the secret where I love her. The one where my traitorous heart fucking went and fell for my best friend’s ex-girlfriend. But if I’m honest with myself, that happened the first night we met, before she even met Ben. I was a goner the moment she played her Unless Game with me.
And the secret where she’s meeting up with my best friend. Tonight.
I stride to the front door, running my hands through my hair, ready to pull her into my arms.
