Page 91 of Fake As Puck
She puts on something mellow and perfect for road trips, and we settle into conversation about the wedding, the drive, what we want to do when we get back to Seattle.
Normal conversation. Easy conversation.
Conversation that completely ignores the fact that what I really want to talk about is how we’re going to make this work. I want to know if I can see her again without the excuse of the wedding. I want to know if she’ll sleep in my bed, wear my shirts, or kiss me again.
“You’re thinking,” she observes somewhere around the two-hour mark.
I don’t reply because she’s right.
“What are you thinking about, West?” she asks softly.
I inhale because it’s a hundred thousand thoughts at this point. I can’t burden her with that.
She says, “You get this little line between your eyebrows when you’re thinking hard about something.”
I look in the mirror, and she laughs.
“Right there.” She reaches over and touches the spot between my eyebrows with her index finger.
The touch lasts maybe two seconds, but it might as well be a lightning bolt.
“See?” she says, settling back in her seat. “You’re thinking about something. Really hard.”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Tell me what it is, West,” she pleads.
I glance at her, and she’s looking at me with genuine curiosity, like she actually wants to know what’s going on in my head.
“You,” I say honestly. “I’m thinking about you.”
“What about me?”
“Everything about you.”
“Like what?”
“Us,” I answer.
She’s quiet for a moment, studying my profile while I focus on the road. “Last night was... good.”
“Good?”
Her smile is wide, and I see her cheeks start to pink. “Really good.”
“So good that you want to keep doing this, right?”
She hesitates, but then she nods, and I’m relieved. The car falls silent, and I don’t think it’s the right time to talk about this, so I turn up the music and awkwardly grin at her.
We get back to my house around three in the afternoon, and I carry her bag while she goes to the kitchen to get water.
“I’m going to unpack,” she calls out.
“Take your time.”
I should probably unpack too. Should probably do something productive with the rest of the day.
Instead, I change into workout clothes and head to my home gym, figuring maybe I can sweat out some of this restless energy.
