Page 49

“No,” she says, her voice quiet. “It’s the wine curse. I can’t blame you.”

My brows skyrocket. “The what ?”

She takes another sip. “The wine curse. Wine results in the worst intoxication and an even worse hangover. I love the stuff, but I’ve been a victim of the wine curse more times than I can count.”

I can’t help it, my lip twitches up a bit. “Ah—the wine curse.”

“It didn’t bother me to take care of you.”

“Then why’d you leave?” I ask, pushing myself from the doorframe. I close the distance between us a bit, which makes her go rigid. “Why have you been treating me the way you used to?”

“Because you asked me to,” she says almost breathlessly. She raises her chin to look at me. “And I wanted to respect that.”

Someone get me a compass. I’m fucking lost.

“When, exactly, did I ask you to do that?”

She glares up at me, studying my face, like she’s sure I’m making a joke out of this. Then she asks me the question that I’m least expecting.

“Do you want to call this?”

It’s hard not to lose myself in her face, start listing all of my favourite parts of it.

The flecks of copper in her dark eyes, the constellations of freckles adorning her skin, the full apples of her cheeks, which make her look so damn happy when she smiles.

That tiny little scar by her temple is another thing I love to fixate on.

To wonder what happened, to learn every bit of her history.

Nah, I still have too many parts of this face to study to call shit.

I shake my head to answer her question.

“Okay,” she whispers, nodding to herself. She brings her wine glass between us and takes a sip. “Then, can we forget about this? Move on? Pretend it never happened?”

That’s a bad idea. I’m missing something, and I feel just as uncomfortable as I did in that locker room, not being able to put all of these pieces together.

“No,” I say. I reach up to cup her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me.

“I missed Lowesy’s poker night, Red. I’ve been going insane thinking I just lost my new favourite person to spend my time with.

I’m fucking things up because I’m worried about this.

When did I give you the impression that I was done annoying you for a minimum of three days a week? ”

Her lip curls up a bit, but those round eyes show a flinch of hesitancy.

“What did I do?” I ask again softly.

“You told me to forget that about that night,” she admits. She relaxes in my hands a bit, reaching up to touch my forearms, like she’s been holding that in for days.

“You need to give me the cold shoulder to forget about me acting like a seventeen-year-old who stole his daddy’s whiskey out of the liquor cabinet?”

Her eyes burn into mine, a bit guarded, a hell of a lot hurt. Her fingers tighten on my arms, her throat bobbing as she waits for me to understand. I don’t. I am unsure how we got here.

One minute, we’re having a great time, and the next, I’m puking up my guts.

One second, we’re laughing at a wine tasting, and the next, she is hauling me up to bed.

It’s not the end of the world, but I didn’t want that to be the baseline for the time we spend together outside of our arrangement. I’m furious that I went from having her mouth on mine for an instant, only for my face to be buried in the toilet bowl the next.

My brain screeches to a halt.

Shit .

I sweep my thumbs against her cheeks and angle my head a bit. “You know when I asked you to forget about it, I was not including any second of what happened before the toilet bowl, right?”

Her eyes drift downward, so I give her head a gentle shake and force them back to mine.

I’m right on the money, I can see it in the shame she’s wearing all over her now.

“Everything before that is not to be forgotten,” I say, my voice even. “In fact, I want you to replay every second of it in your mind before bed for the rest of your life. That part stays. The rest of it goes. ”

She lets out a long breath through her nose, shaking her head between my hands.

“It’s fine. We were drunk and I misunderstood.”

“It’s not fine,” I counter, and she shoots me her token glare.

Great, we’re back in business. “Because I was drunk and I ruined the moment. Trust me, if I hadn’t gotten sick, I would have made it abundantly clear that I think we should kiss more often.

I think a lot of situations are more dire than we believe them to be.

I’m preparing a thesis on it as we speak. ”

Her glare gets colder, but those eyes warm.

“Like right now,” I continue, stepping completely into her space.

My hands are still cupping her face, but now our bodies are touching.

Her hands fall to my hips, slide around my back absentmindedly.

I lower my face to hers, until our mouths are a hair’s length apart.

“We’re fighting. It’s dire. I say we have to enact our rules. Any objections?”

She breathes a laugh, but shakes her head.

“Good,” I mumble, pressing my lips to hers.

Her hands dig into the back of my shirt, both of us just melting into the simple sweep of our mouths.

An easy kiss. A soft one. The bandage being placed over this fight to help it heal.

I still have no idea what the fuck I’m doing, and Boston’s words are replaying in the back of my head on a loop, but she’s still here and I’m going to work with that.

I pull away just enough, and my heart stops at the look of her freshly kissed face. Plump, freckled lips fallen open, eyes still closed. Her brows pinched a bit in the middle, like she’s just as confused as I am right now.

Her eyes flutter open and she unwinds her arms from around me.

“What’s truly dire is my appetite right now. Want to stay for some food? I think I’m going to order some pizza.”

I stay. We don’t kiss or touch anymore, but she’s gone back to glaring at me more frequently, so I’m certain we’re on the same path again.

I can hear the clock ticking above my head, counting down the days until this isn’t a thing between us anymore.

If this week was any indication, I’m not ready to unbind myself from her yet.

Not even close.