Page 63 of Rebound With Me
“Okay.” Neither of us moves.
“Eventually.”
“Yeah.” I nestle my face into her belly and hug her waist while her fingers run through my hair. “Well I really like this place so far,” I say.
She laughs. “And to think I was worried it wouldn’t be your speed.”
I exhale.
“To think I was worried thatIwouldn’t be your speed.”
I lift one hand up to hold hers.
“I don’t know how you did it,” she whispers, after a long pause.
“Did what?”
“Got me to bring you home with me after knowing you for an hour. I keep thinking about it. It’s like there was one moment in time that I was open to something like that and you found me there.”
“It’s funny you say that. Because I’ve been thinking that you’re the one who found me. Or you keep finding these parts of me that I didn’t know existed.”
She presses her lips against the top of my head, and then I feel her body tremble and know that she’s laughing. “I’m sorry! It’s so sweet that you said that, but —”
“Yeah yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it. You’re like an adolescent boy sometimes, oh my God.”
“I’m sorry, I love that you said that, I just…”
I affect a dorky voice. “’Hey what’s this thing hanging off my pelvis? I didn’t even know that was there before—thanks Nina!’”
She mimics the dorky voice. “’Hey what’s this thing behind my forehead?’ ‘Oh honey, that’s your frontal lobe.’”
I tackle her. “You’ve found a side of me I didn’t know I had. How’s that?”
“Your good side, finally?”
“My best side. Miss Parks, you are a grade A smartass.” I smack her butt.
She sticks the tip of her index finger in her mouth and bites it, rolling her eyeballs up like the secretly naughty good girl that she is.
“Hey…” I am about to tell her I am so fucking head over heels in love with her, but suddenly the walls shake and we hear a door slam. A man and a woman’s voice heard through the wall behind our bed, somewhat hushed but definitely an argument.
We both tilt our heads towards the wall to listen, because it sounds—not heated so much as mean. A lot of seething anger. Bad vibes.
“Should we go down and get something to eat now?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“What were you going to say?”
“I’ll tell ya later.”
Probably best not to say it on the first night that we’re here anyway, in case shit gets awkward. Things do get awkward for everyone eventually, as our charming neighbors have reminded me.
