“I know you are. But … I’d like you to come home with me.”
My eyes open. He’s watching me with a wariness I know intimately. He wants this now. But what happens tomorrow? Letting it be was easier when it didn’t involve sleepovers. I’m already in deeper than I can afford to be.
“This can just be sex,” I say.
He tosses my shirt on my bag and walks toward me. “You and I both know it’s never just sex between us.”
“But it can be,” I offer, my hand trembling at my side.
He stops a couple of inches in front of me. I can feel his breath on my face, smell the hints of mint from the tobacco he must’ve chewed tonight.
The room is perfectly still. There’s not a sound to be heard. The only break in the silence is my ragged breaths and the energy pulsing off Machlan, something I’m sure I hear.
“I’m a little fucked up about this,” he says. “I don’t know the right answer.”
I lean away as he tries to touch me. “I don’t know the right answer either, but I do know I have to be careful with you.”
“Didn’t you come here to figure things out?” He drops his hand. “Because I feel like we’re doing that somehow.”
“Yeah, that’s why I came here. But honestly, I thought it was going to go a different way.”
“You wanted me to be a dick so you could feel good about leaving?”
“I didn’t want that,” I say, “but I expected to be able to justify moving on when I left. You’re making that super hard right now.”
He moves too quickly to stop him from touching my arm. Like a jolt of electricity, my body sings at the contact.
“I don’t want to make your life hard,” he says, his fingertips pressing into my arm. “But I don’t want you leaving and not wanting to talk to me again either.”
I focus on the softness of his words and not the way I begin to sway. “Mach …”
“Look, it’s late. You’re up. I’m up. Just come home with me.”
I want to. I might never have wanted something so bad in my entire life. And he’s asking—not assuming or manipulating and I’m not winding up there by chance.
“Machlan, I—”
He touches his finger to my lips. “Before you say no, hear me out.” He waits for me to nod before dropping his hand. “I don’t know what in the hell I’m doing, okay? I’m walking this line of trying to leave you alone so you can go on about your life, but it’s so fucking hard when all I want to do is be around you.”
I force a swallow, tears flirting with the corners of my eyes.
Seeing this side of him isn’t something I’ve seen before many times. I can count them on one hand. I know how hard it is for him to let himself be vulnerable, to put himself out there like this, and all I want to do is hug him.
This is the man I fell in love with. Not the guy I slept with first or the one who saved the day when I drank too much. This is the guy who clasped a necklace around my neck after a night at the Water Festival and told me I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
To think this man, the one who can be so considerate sometimes, can think he should let me go on about my life is ridiculous. But I don’t have the energy to point that out.
“It’s not as if you have anything else to do,” he points out. A hint of a grin is back.
“Are you sure?”
“You’re the one who said we need to just see where things settle between us. I’m just trying to do what you asked, and right now, this feels like where it should settle.”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Just stands in front of me waiting on me to break. And even though it might not be the best answer if I think it out completely, I don’t. I give in.
“But you’re sure?” I ask with a grin of my own.
He laughs, grabbing my bag. “No, I’ve stood here for the past ten minutes not sure. Yes, Hadley, I’m sure.”
“Fine.” I suck my cheeks in to keep them from breaking in half and head to the door. “If you’re sure.”
He swats my ass, making me yelp. “Keep it up.”
“That’s what she said.”
I don’t look back as he starts laughing. I make my way toward his truck with the lightest steps I’ve ever taken and the best music in my ears.
Twenty-Three
Hadley
The hardwoods creak as I make my way down the hall. The house is dark, pitch black in most areas. A night light glows from the living room, and I know without looking that it’s a little plug-in shaped like a tea rose. It’s been there since the first time I came to this house. It belonged to his mother.
I venture through the house in a pair of shorts and an oversized T-shirt with a slogan from an athletics company on the front. My hair is wet from the quick shower I took while Machlan took a call from Walker.
The air is crisp as I mosey around, like a window is open somewhere. Scents of pine from the trees surrounding the house and a hint of cleaning product and tobacco flood my senses. It’s a weird combination, but one that’s definitely Machlan.
I’ve walked this hallway a hundred times before. I know each plank that will give a little when I step on it, and that the section by the front door will echo a little louder than the part in the back. The closet to my left is filled with coats and shoes, and the door to my right used to be Machlan’s dad’s home office.
Out of all the houses I’ve ever stayed in, this one feels the most like home. My mother and I had to move too often to afford rent in California. Living with Dad and Cross, and then just Cross when Dad took off for Reno and never came back, wasn’t very heartwarming. This place, though, always felt cozy and smelled vaguely of fresh flowers and home cooked food. It still does.
My movements slow as I near the kitchen. The light is bright ahead of me. Soft rustlings and the snap of a refrigerator door roll from the room. The soft material of the burgundy rug lining the last few feet to the kitchen caress the soles of my feet.
Hand over my mouth, I stifle a yawn as I reach the threshold.
Then I stop in my tracks.
Machlan is doing something at the counter with his back—his bare back—to me. He’s naked except for a pair of gray sweatpants hanging from his narrow hips. Each movement causes the muscles in his back to ripple. The pushing and pulling of his perfectly sized muscles make me gulp.
Knowing he was in the shower earlier and not peeking was super hard. The door was cracked, so it wouldn’t have been hard. But going in there and not making things even more complicated would’ve been impossible, so I didn’t. I busied myself by texting Emily instead.
“You gonna stare all night or what?” he asks.
“Maybe I’m not here.”
His body vibrates with a chuckle. “I see you in the window, genius.”
“Oh.” I yawn again, forcing it a little this time, as if to say I’m tired and not completely turned on. He grins smugly, seeing through it, but I ignore his delicious smirk. “It’s after three.”
“Nice you can tell time.” He turns and hands me a plate. There’s a perfectly browned grilled cheese sandwich cut into four little squares. “Thought you might be hungry.”
“You come home from work and make grilled cheese sandwiches?” I ask, taking the plate.
He takes a square off my plate and pops the whole thing in his mouth. “Fuck, that’s hot!” His mouth pops open, and he waves his hand in front of it. A dollop of cheese is stuck to his bottom lip, and I want to wipe it off, but I don’t. If I touch him with his six-pack abs looking all glorious, it would be the end of me. I’d have an orgasm holding a grilled cheese.
“That’s why you shouldn’t steal.” I sit at the table and pick up a piece. I hold the sandwich so it looks like I’m giving it serious attention when, in reality, I can see across the golden crust and watch Machlan pour two glasses of water. “When did you learn how to cook?”
He pads across the floor and hands me a glass. Our fingers touch as I take it. I pretend not to notice.
“I hardly think grilled cheese is considered cooking.” He grabs another plate off the counter and then sits across from me. “But I can reheat food like it’s nobody’s business.”
I take a bite. The cheese oozes out the sides and melts in my mouth. It’s buttery and gooey, and the crunch on the outside is so satisfying. He grins as he takes a careful bite of his.
“This is good,” I say, licking my lips.
“You should see what I can do with Nana’s fried chicken.”
“Oh, really?” I eat another piece in two bites. “What do you do with that?”
“You take the chicken and put it in a brown paper bag. Turn on the oven and put the chicken in there. Grab a shower and when you’re out, the chicken is warm and crispy.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to put a paper bag in the oven, Mach.”
“I’ve done it a hundred times, and nothing bad has happened yet.”
I laugh. “I think that’s just part of your charm.”
He shoves another section in his mouth. “What’s that mean?”
“You do a lot of things a hundred times and nothing bad happens. You better hope it doesn’t start catching up with you.”
His eyes go wide before he grabs a napkin and cleans his hands. “You gonna eat that last piece?”
“No. I hate eating this late. I’ll wake up with an upset stomach.”
“Then why did you eat any of it?” he asks, sliding my plate in front of him.
“I can say no to a lot of things but not grilled cheese. Even I have limits.”
“Good to know.” He slides the last bit into his mouth and washes it down with a long drink of water. “You ready for bed?”
A bit of panic creeps through my body. Raising my glass, I take a drink. A long one. One that nearly drains the entire glass into my stomach. Getting waterlogged is a better alternative than answering that question the wrong way.