Page 95 of Nothing But It All
He closes the book and sets it on his lap.
I move onto my side, laying an arm across his stomach.
“Maddie asked me a question a couple of weeks ago about it,” he says. “They were reading it in school, I think.”
I nod. “Yeah. She had to do a paper on it.”
“Right. Well, she asked me something about one of the characters’ motivations, and I had no clue what she was talking about. She startedbreaking it down for me, and it sounded interesting. So I bought myself a copy.”
I grin, narrowing my eyes. “So you’re a bookworm now?”
He laughs. “I wouldn’t start labeling me anything yet. I’m on chapter six.”
“There’s something super sexy about a man with a book.”
“Is there?”
My fingers stroke his skin. “Yeah. It doesn’t matter what kind. Classics or historical dramas or books about car parts.” I laugh. “It shows that you have interests outside of yourself. That bodes well for the future.”
“I haven’t read a book in a long time. I think the last one was that yellow parenting book we read together when you were pregnant with Michael.” He chuckles. “We spent so much time memorizing all of that shit and didn’t use any of it.”
“No, but it made us feel more prepared.”
He slides his arm under my head and pulls me into the crook of his arm. I nestle against him, lacing one foot over his.
“You got a new freckle,” he says.
“What?”
“You have a new freckle.” He touches the side of my nose. “Right there.”
I laugh. “How would you ever know that?”
“I know every freckle, mole, and scar on your body, Lo. I’ve committed every inch of you to memory.”
I grin against him.
“That’s the shitty part of this whole thing,” he says. “You think I don’t find you attractive—that I don’t want to be with you. That I don’t appreciate you. But you couldn’t be more wrong.” He strokes my side. “Assumption is the mother of all fuckups. Maybe I assumed you knew, or maybe I just got lazy with telling you. But I’m going to tell you all the things, all the time now. You’ll get sick of hearing it.”
My heart swells so big I think it might burst.
“That runs both ways, Jack.”
“How do you mean?”
My stomach twists so hard that I squirm. “I feel like a jerk.”
“Why?”
“I’ve made it clear that you didn’t tell me things or make me feel certain ways. But I probably didn’t tell you things or make you feel certain ways either. And I never considered that.”
He strokes my arm. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. I need you to be honest with me. Did that ever hurt your feelings?”
“Maybe not in those words.”
“Then how?”
