Page 73 of The Affair
“Typical,” he answered before catching himself. He met my gaze and took a moment before answering again, “Not great.”
It wasn’t a detailed answer, but it was honest.
And it was a start.
“I have more memories of you when we were younger,” I told him. “That year you guys lived up the street, it was the only time I remember you and Reed together a lot.”
He smiled fondly. “That’s only because we were competing for your attention.”
“What? But you were in high school! I was just a dorky seventh-grader.
“It’s true.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Although, if you’d had this haircut, things might have been different.”
Laughing, I pushed playfully at him. “Reed never told me that.”
His expression darkened ever so slightly. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant by that or if they had both competed for my attention, why he’d stopped, but he beat me with a question of his own.
“Do you have plans tonight?”
“Do you count binge-watching and leftovers as plans?” I chided.
“Well, I mean, I’ve never actually Netflix and chilled, but I’m definitely game if you are.”
His sly smile almost had me shouting,Okay!and running downstairs, wild morning hair be damned, but I reined it in.
“What do you have in mind? For your plans?” I asked, desperately trying to ignore the slight crack in my voice as I stared deep into his hypnotic eyes.
“Dinner,” he explained. “But this time, I want to take you out.”
I swallowed hard. “Like, on a date?”
“Is that okay?”
Nodding, I smiled. “Yeah, I guess I just realized we hadn’t actually been on one—an actual date, that is.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “We’ve done things a little backward.”
“If backward means becoming semi-related, then coworkers, and finally nursemaids, sure, backward works.”
He grinned. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do. And speaking of nursemaid, how are you feeling? You look better.”
My hand rose to his forehead, but he grabbed it before it got there, pulling it to his lips instead. My stomach sort of flip-flopped as I watched him tenderly kiss each knuckle. It was sexy as hell.
Netflix and chill? I could go for that…
Who needed dinner? Or a date?
We could just go straight to…
“Shit, it’s late,” Sawyer said, jumping from the bed so fast that you would have thought I’d just announced I had herpes.
“What?”
“I thought it was seven when I came up here to wake you, but it’s… crap, it’s almost eight thirty. That clock on your DVD player is wrong.”
