Page 11 of Scoreless Nights

I smirked and tried not to smile, I just couldn’t help it. “Were you going to wait until I went to bed to be sure I wasn’t fucking anyone in the living room?”

Her small smile fell, and my stomach twisted, afraid she wouldn’t realize I was teasing her. She slid her tongue out and licked her lips as her cheeks reddened. I could tell her brain was turning over several responses before landing on one.

“I met with my friends today. They’re great, and I know I can go stay there by the time you get back from New York.”

“No,” I snapped. “You’re fine here. I was just kidding.”

Her smile tried lifting again, but it fell just as quickly. “Like I said this morning, I know you don’t want me here.”

“Erin is gay,” I blurted, making both of us stare at each other in confusion.Why the fuck did I say that?

“Oh. Well, okay. That changes…nothing really.”

I nodded, agreeing with her. It changed nothing...No wait.“It means you don’t have to leave.”

“Who the hell is Erin?” She asked, her voice raising higher, clearly exasperated.

Only then did I realize that part of my conversation with her was happening in my head, and she had no idea what the hell I was talking about.

“The girl that was here,” I explained. “I didn’t fuck her. I’m helping her get ready to go pro. She would rather fuck you than me.”

She had taken a bite of her pizza and was slowly chewing as she processed all the details I just laid out for her. When she swallowed, my eyes followed the movement of her neck, and the way she licked the grease off her lips. That reaction I was having to her was the exact reason I didn’t want her there, while also being the same reason I wasn’t going to let her leave. I didn’t know how to act, but I knew it would make my life easier if I went ahead and figured us out. Especially since she might be moving to Miami.

Plus, we were already making more progress as adults than as teenagers. We were using whole sentences with one another.

“Okay, so,” she started as she slid her remaining pizza away from her. “You don’t want me here, but you don’t think I should go to my friend’s house, and Erin doesn’t want to fuck you?”

“Not even a threesome,” I shrugged. “She isn’t into dick.”

Okay that may have been unnecessary information.

It felt like forever before she responded, but I stayed quiet because I didn’t know what else was going to come out of my mouth. Eventually, though, she busted out laughing. “I don’t understand anything we’re talking about, Cruz.”

“Yeah well,” I tried laughing with her, but my heart was beating too fast. “I’m just trying to tell you to stop trying to go stay with some stranger. Also, I don’t bring women here, ever. So the odds of you seeing me fuck someone on that couch are zero.”

She nodded, while still coming down from her hysteria, and rounded the counter, coming closer to me in the kitchen. I was still in my shorts, had no shirt on–my hat tossed onto the coffee table. She was in jean shorts and a tank top, and her hair was piled into a messy bun.

When she reached around me to grab a cup, I stayed still, feeling the heat from her skin barely skimming mine. Moving would have made it easier on her–and me–but some crazy part of me wondered if those awkward feelings were just one sided.Was I testing her?

She filled her cup with some water from the tap and drank it down while I watched her swallow. Then she refilled the same cup, and started walking toward her bedroom again.

“Where are you going?”

She turned around with another confused look on her face and tilted her head. “To bed?”

“So we’re done talking?”What the hell was I doing?“Just like that?”

“Was there more? I think I got the basics. I’ll stop trying to stay with my friends, you won’t embarrass me by doing‘stuff’out in the open. I got it and I appreciate it. Promise.”

“Then why are you going to bed?”

“Because it’s nine-thirty.”

“On a Saturday,” I snorted. “Nine-thirty is early for any night of the week, unless you’re seven.”

“Yesterday was a long travel day. Then I drove all the way to Little Havana today. And I have spoken more words to you than ever before. I’m freaking exhausted.”

Without another glance, she turned back toward her door and quietly shut it behind her. I was still in the exact spot I had been in since she joined me for pizza. My feet felt glued to the floor, and I started lifting them one at a time to make sure that feeling was all in my head.

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