Page 88 of The Invitation
His features darken.
“What if I walk out my front door one day and there’s a man with a handlebar mustache in a beat-up white van with tinted windows sitting across the street?”
“So specific.”
“Little girls grow up painting pictures of who the ‘bad guy’ might be,” I say. “That was mine. His name was Gilbert. He smelled like cigarettes and wore sunglasses.”
Ripley cocks his head to the side. “I have so many questions.”
“The point is that as a female and as a person who couldn’t just hire an attorney to defend myself in court, I’d never leave my information like that. Maybe I’d call in after I got home or something. But that?” I point at the letter. “That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”
His brows tug together as if he’s never once contemplated something like this. It blows my mind.How has he made it thirty years and not considered these types of things?
He scoots over on the couch. “Why don’t you sit with me until the rain stops?”
“Oh, do you want to cuddle? Heads-up—I’m not much of a cuddler.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
“You’re a smart man … sometimes.”
I sit beside him, leaning against his side and drawing my knees up to my chest. He wraps an arm around me and rests the side of his head against mine.
I wait for the weirdness to settle in, for the moment where we realize that we might not hate each other anymore, but we also aren’t friends. Now that we’ve had sex, things are forever changed. And no heart-to-hearts, no arguments, no truths will ever fix it.
But nothing happens.Huh.
“What are you thinking?” he asks softly.
“That we didn’t film at all today.”
“That’s not what you were thinking,” he says, chuckling.
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
I take a long breath and wonder if I should broach this topic. It makes me nervous to go there, but we’ll have to do it sooner or later. And he did bring it up, which is a green flag.
“I’m wondering when things get uncomfortable,” I say.
“Why do they have to get uncomfortable?”
He strokes my arm gently, his even breathing lulling me into a trance. I forget he’s asked me a question. Instead, I close my eyes and let his presence bleed into me and make me feel protected in a way I can’t remember feeling before.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured by this,” he says, hesitantly.
“By what?”
“When we walked up this mountain, you felt one way about me. Now that we’ve had sex, I don’t want you to think there’s pressure there.”
Oh. “So you’re saying that as far as you’re concerned, what happens in the cabin stays in the cabin?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Then what did you say?”
I hold my breath and wait for his explanation.
