Page 55 of The Legend Next Door
It’s confusing, but I like it. I liked it before I knew for sure that’s what he was doing, and I like it even more now that I know.
“Okay,” I say when I remember I have the floor. “So I took Luca to the park last week. I packed a picnic for us, and I was sitting under a tree near the swings, watching him, when this woman caught my eye. She was… How do I put it? Not being great to her kids. She was really short-tempered, and more than that, she was kind of…picking on them, finding fault with everything they were doing, you know?” Jeremiah nods. “It wasn’t good. I found myself thinking she must not be a very nice person, and I hardly ever think things like that, so I specifically remember thinking that. Anyway, a while later, she walked past me and said hi. I said hi back, and we started a conversation, and she was completely different from what I thought. She was attentive and interesting. Cracking little jokes and that kind of thing. I found myself confused, thinking I must have been wrong and she was nice after all. It was weird. Later, I was telling Amy how strange the whole thing was and how I couldn’t work out what this woman’s deal was, and Amy was gobsmacked. You should have seen her face. Pure disbelief. She was like, ‘For fuck’s sake, Ben. She washittingon you.’”
“Holy shit.” Jeremiah laughs, his expression mirroring Amy’s almost exactly. “I can’t believe a woman hit on you in broad daylight, at the swings no less, and you didn’t even notice. Are you serious?” He looks incredulous and engaged. I have his full attention, and I like that too. “You really couldn’t tell she was flirting? God, you’re in even worse shape than I am. It’s sad, Ben. Super sad and embarrassing.”
“Hey.” I give him an indignant little nudge. My knee presses against his from the action. Ordinarily, I’d move it, but tonight, I don’t. Instead, I say, “I know whenyou’reflirting with me, don’t I?”
A pretty pale pink blooms on the apples of his cheeks. He reaches behind his head self-consciously and tugs at his cap, straightening it and pulling it down a little more.
“Yeah, but”—there’s a light pressure where our legs are touching. It’s warm. A gentle heat that teems and runs down to my toes. He parts his legs slightly. He must because the pressure on my knee intensifies. I watch him intently, waiting for him to back away first. He doesn’t move either. He gives me a smile that’s somehow both incredibly cocky and incredibly uncertain—“that’s only ’cause I’ve gotmadskills.”
I’m not sure if I’m supposed to laugh at what he said. I think maybe I should, but I don’t because the light in the room is low, and it’s done something to the mood.
I switched off the overhead lights before Jeremiah arrived because who the hell likes overhead lights anyway. They’re a bad mood waiting to happen. As a result, the only light in the living room comes from the table lamps on either side of the sofa. Their glow is soft and inviting, causing a subtle gold outline where it hits his features. It’s distracting. There are tiny, fine blond hairs on the sides of his face that I’ve never noticed until now. He must have shaved before he came over because there’s a straight horizontal line midway down his cheek where soft, downy hair has been shorn, even though, strictly speaking, he could have placed his razor a little lower to ensure he only removed coarse hair. His skin is smooth beneath the line. It looks soft. So soft and smooth that it’s taking everything I have not to reach out and swipe my thumb across it to test my theory.
“Mad skills, huh?” I say absently. “Bet they get you into a world of trouble.”
“Some.” He laughs, shrugging his shoulders but still not moving his knee. “Not a lot.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
We keep drinking and talking, finishing the first bottle of wine and opening another. I’m having a good time. I’m completely comfortable. It’s not that I’m not. I’m always comfortable with Jeremiah, but something is different between us tonight. It doesn’t feel how it feels when we have our coffee on the porch. It doesn’t feel how it feels when Luca is with us. It doesn’t even feel how it feels when I’m upstairs in my room watching him.
There’s a dull hum in my bones. A tension. A pull.
An unmistakable pull of arousal.
It’s fucking with me.
It’s not that I mind exactly. It’s not even that I’m all that surprised, given that I can’t stop thinking about Jeremiah, watching him from my window, or concocting silly little things I want to say to amuse him the next time I see him.
It’s that he’s a man and my body is acting like it wants him.
I don’t feel like this about men. It’s not how I’m wired.
At least, I didn’t feel like this about men.
I’ve never felt like this before, and it’s not like I haven’t had ample opportunities and a ton of exposure to guys. I’m a hockey player, for Christ’s sake. I’ve been buck naked in crowded locker rooms for years, and I’ve taken showers with men more times than I can remember. I have a lot of male friends. We aren’t toxic. We hug. We talk. We get drunk together.
But not like this.
Never like this.
Jeremiah is talking about Marcus when I rejoin the conversation. At least, he’s complaining about him. “…really judgy lately. Likesojudgy, and not even about things he used to be judgy about. He’s being judgy about new things. I don’t know what’s up with him. It’s been bugging me. You want to know something sad?” I nod, though I don’t particularly like the idea of sad things and Jeremiah in the same sentence. “Sometimes I think I’m more of a habit than a friend to him.”
“Why’d you think that?”
“I dunno, sometimes he treats me like he doesn’t really approve of me. Like I disappoint him.”
“How long have you been friends?”
“Mm…” He drops his chin into the palm of his hand. “Seven, maybe eight years. A long time.”
“Have you been friends-friends for all that time or friends who fuck?”
Jesus. What is it with me?It only took me five seconds to steer the conversation back to sex.
“Marcus?” His top lip curls up and tiny lines form on the bridge of his nose. “MyMarcus?”
