Page 14 of Places in Time
“That was great, not good.” I pushed him onto his back and rolled on top of him. “I want to do it again.”
“What happened to you tonight?”
“I took a detour down memory lane and had some sense knocked into me.”
“By Jen? Are you doing this because of the breakup?”
“It had nothing to do with the breakup,” I hurried to assure him. “I’m not using you for a rebound.”
“It’s okay if you are, E. I’ll be your rebound guy or anything else you need.” He smiled, curled his hand around the back of my head, and leaned our foreheads together in a familiar gesture of support. “You just need to catch me up, okay? Because I’ve wanted to be with you forever and you’ve never shown any interest.”
“I didn’t know. I swear, I never realized. I’m not sure how I missed it, but…” I buried my face in his neck and let his scent soothe me.
He combed his fingers through my hair. “Missed what? How I feel about you?”
“No, we can chalk that one up to me being a self-absorbed actor who can’t see anything other than himself.” I laughed and kissed him, feeling endlessly grateful that I could. “What I meant was, I never understood howIfeel aboutyou.”
Our bodies were pressed together, so I couldn’t miss Jude’s reaction. His heart rate increased, his breathing quickened, and he swallowed hard. “How do you feel about me, E?”
I gazed into those oh-so-blue eyes and saw desire, adoration, and a host of other emotions I had failed to recognize during two decades of friendship. And along with them, for the first time, I saw hope.
“I love you, Jude Harrison. A breath-stealing, heart-racing, mind-melting, all-consuming, want-to-be-with-you-forever kind of love. Think you can handle that?”
He smiled and blinked back tears. “Yeah, something tells me I can deal with it.”
