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“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Hardin rolls his eyes.
Just then the wind picks up, and Hardin’s long hair starts blowing around his head. I can’t help but point up at it and laugh. It’s safer than the alternative: asking Hardin why he’s in the city to begin with.
“My hair looks better like this and gives women more to pull,” he teases, but the words drive straight through me.
“Oh,” I say, but laugh along, not wanting him to know that my head is spinning and my chest is aching at the thought of anyone else touching him.
“Hey.” He reaches for me, turns me around to look at him as if we were alone on the sidewalk. “I was joking, a shitty, stupid, really fucking dumb joke.”
“It’s okay, I’m okay.” I smile up at him, tucking my blowing hair behind my ear.
“You may be all independent and fearless enough to hang out with homeless men, but you’re still a shit liar,” he says, calling me out.
I try to keep the mood light. “Hey, don’t go talking about Joe. He’s my friend.” I stick my tongue out at Hardin as we pass a couple making out on a bench.
Loud enough for them to hear, Hardin says, “Five bucks says he has his hand up her skirt in less than two minutes.”
I playfully shove at his shoulder, and he wraps an arm around my waist. “Don’t get too touchy—Joe will ask questions!” I wiggle my brows at Hardin, and he bursts into laughter.
“What is it with you and homeless men?”
Thoughts of my father fill my mind, and I stop laughing for a beat.
“Shit, I didn’t mean it like that.”
I hold my hand up and smile. “No, it’s okay. Really, let’s just hope Joe doesn’t turn out to be my uncle.” Hardin stares at me as if I’ve grown another set of eyes, and I laugh at him. “I’m fine! I can take a joke now. I have learned not to take myself so seriously.”
He seems pleased with that, and he even smiles at Joe when I hand him his bag of catfish and hush puppies.
THE APARTMENT IS DARK when we get back. Landon has most likely been asleep for a few hours.
“Have you eaten?” I ask Hardin when he follows me into the kitchen.
Hardin sits down at the two-person table and lifts his elbows onto the surface. “No, actually, I haven’t. I was going to steal that bag of food, but Joe beat me to it.”
“I can make you something? I’m hungry, too.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m dipping my finger into the vodka sauce, testing the flavor.
“You going to share that?” Hardin asks from behind me. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve eaten something off of your finger,” he teases with a smirk. “The icing was one of my favorite flavors of Tessa.”
“You remember that?” I offer him some sauce on a spoon.
“I remember everything, Tessa. Well, everything that I wasn’t too drunk or high during.” A frown takes over his teasing smile, and I dip my finger into the spoon and offer it to him. It does the job, and his smile returns.
His tongue is warm on my finger, and his eyes are pouring into mine when he licks the sauce from the tip. Pulling my finger between his lips, he sucks again and continues long after the sauce is gone.
My finger on his lips, he says, “I was going to talk to you about something. It involves what you said about me remembering things.”
But the way his soft lips are moving on my skin distracts me. “Right now?”
“Soon, doesn’t have to be tonight,” he whispers, his tongue darting out to wet the tip of my middle finger, too.
“What are we doing?”
“You’ve asked me that too many times.” He smiles, getting up.
“We haven’t seen each other in so long. This isn’t a good idea,” I say, not meaning a damn word of it.
“I’ve missed you, and I’ve been waiting for you to miss you, too.” His hand is on my hip, resting there, pressing against the fabric of my work shirt. “I don’t like seeing you in all black. It doesn’t suit you.” He leans his head down and nudges my jaw with his nose.
My fingers fumble with the buttons on my shirt, clumsily slipping over the small plastic beads. “I’m happy that you didn’t show up in another color.”
He smiles against my cheek. “I haven’t changed much, Tess. Just got a few doctors, hit the gym more.”
“You still don’t drink?” I drop my shirt to the floor behind us, and he backs me into the counter.
“A little, yes. Usually only wine or a light beer. But, no, I’m never going to chug a bottle of vodka again.”
My skin is on fire, and my brain is slowly trying to make sense of how we got here, all these months later, with my hands waiting for permission to remove his shirt. He seems to read my thoughts and lifts my hands in his and pushes them into the thin material.
“It’s our anniversary month, you know?” he says as I pull his shirt over his head and take in the sight of his bare chest.
My eyes scan over the area, looking for new designs, and I’m happy to find only the leaves—ferns, I believe Hardin called them. They look like odd-shaped leaves to me, with thick sides and a long stem coming out of the bottom. “We don’t have an anniversary month, you insane man.” I find myself trying to get a glimpse at his back, yet am embarrassed when he catches on and turns around.
“Yes, we do,” he disagrees. “Still only yours on my back,” he briefly explains while I stare at the newly developed muscles in his shoulders and back.