Page 42 of Free Fall

“Oh.” He lets out a slow breath and meets my eyes. “Do you?”

“Well, yeah. That’s the reason why I don’t know if we can hook up again. I don’t want to care about youmoreand have it end…” I feel sick. “Like that.”

“Huh.” He tilts his head again, thinking.

“Huh what?”

“Having people care whether I live or not is weird.”

“Weird? It’sweirdto care whether the guy who makes you come like the world is ending and then being reborn out your ass lives or dies?”

“Okay, more like different. And it’s not like I’ll definitely die.”

“Just likely.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t do it if I think it’s likely either.” He smirks again. “But back to what you said before—”

“Okay.”

He leans forward. “You came so hard the world was reborn out your ass? I fucked you that good?”

I roll my eyes. Men, they’re all the same. Even me. “You know you did.”

“Well…” He shrugs again, leaning back and settling in with his feet out and crossed. His smug expression doesn’t fade. “I knew that, yeah. Which is why I was so confused about why you were ghosting me.”

“Now you understand.”

“I understand that you and I have the same fear, yes,” he says, solemnly. “Of getting attached.”

“Right.”

“I admit, I almost let you walk away. I don’t see many benefits in attachment either. But I’ve thought a lot about it the last few days, and I think we should risk it.”

“Because the sex is so good?”

“Yes, but also…” He scrubs a hand through his hair and then leans forward, elbows on the table. “Actually, no. Let’s take sex out of the equation.”

I scoff. “How? We’re literally hookups. We’re not even friends. If we take it out of the equation, what do we have?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly.”

“And that’s perfect.”

“You’ve completely lost me.”

“Stay with me now,” he says, tapping his palms on the table. “I’ve had two goals ever since I saw your profile on that hideous app.” He puts up two fingers. “To fuck your brains out. Did that.”He puts one finger down. “To see you smile at me the way you’re smiling in your profile picture.”

I blink at him baffled. “I’ve already smiled at you? Plenty of times. I just smiled at you earlier when I sat down.”

“It wasn’t the right smile.”

I’m not sure if he’s a stalker, a freak, or an adorable weirdo. Inside I’m feeling the urge to run, to laugh, and to throttle him all at once. Maybe kiss him too. “What’s the ‘right’ smile?”

“The one where your nose crinkles up, and your eyes go kind of half-moon shaped, and they shine and twinkle, and…” He pulls out his phone, taps a few things, and then shows me my own profile on the hookup app. “This one.”

I snort. “Weird, but okay. I mean, not ‘okay, I plan to spend time with you until you achieve this bizarre goal no matter the cost to my own mental health should you plummet off a wall later’, but ‘okay I’m still listening even though I shouldn’t be’.”