Page 33 of How Freaking Romantic

I have never spent so long in the bathroom.

Between the time we spend on the counter, and then afterward in the shower, I emerge an hour later with muscles that feel like rubber. My laundry bag is still in the corner of the living room, and I dig through it to find something to wear, settling on a pair of leggings and an oversized sweater.

Then I pile my wet hair on top of my head and steal a glance in the mirror by the bookcase.

A few curls have escaped my sloppy bun, falling down the slope of my neck.

My hazel eyes are clear. My freckles are more pronounced.

There’s none of the usual tension in my features, and I turn away before I can dissect that.

He’s making coffee when I arrive in the kitchen. His hair is sticking out in all directions and his sweatpants are frayed and old. It’s like he’s actively resisting how attractive he is, and that somehow only makes it more pronounced.

“Grab the milk?” he says, nodding to the refrigerator as he presses a few more buttons and the machine buzzes to life.

I turn to the refrigerator and open the door. The fluorescent light illuminates the empty shelves. Well, not totally empty. There are a few beers in the back and a bottle of ketchup next to the milk on the door, but beyond that and some take-out containers, it’s barren.

“Do you actually live here, or is this a fake apartment where you bring women?”

His brow furrows. “Excuse me?”

“This fridge is an abomination.”

He comes up behind me and looks at the empty shelves. “I haven’t had time to go grocery shopping in a while,” he says as he grabs the milk.

“What the hell do you eat?”

He shrugs, pouring some into both coffee mugs, then handing one to me. “I’m usually at the office, and the kitchen there is stocked.”

The information sits heavy in my chest. It’s a rare insight into his life, one that feels so lonely and also so familiar.

I nod and take the mug he offers me. “So probably not the right time to tell you I’m starving.”

A smug grin tugs at the corner of his lips. “Have you heard of something they call delivery?”

We decide on the diner around the corner, ordering entirely too much for just the two of us.

When it arrives, we pile it all on the coffee table and curl up on the sofa, our legs tangled together as he offers me the remote control and begins picking at an order of fries.

He doesn’t realize his mistake until I’ve combed through his streaming services, found what I was looking for, and pressed play.

A synthesized pop soundtrack fills the room, and the screen fades up to reveal the glitzy logo for The Real Housewives of New York City .

Nathan groans, but there’s a smile at the corner of his mouth, too.

I begin with season one, which I’ve already seen a thousand times before, so I’m barely paying attention to the dialogue or drama.

I’m too busy enjoying the ease of this moment, the comfortable silence.

He gets up halfway through episode five to get us beers, and when he returns, he has so many questions that I have to throw a cold french fry at his head.

It’s the best Saturday I’ve had in a long time.

By the time season one ends, my foot has found its way into his lap, and he’s massaging it lazily with one hand while he holds the remote in the other, searching for something else to watch.

I look at him and study his profile. His attention stays on the television, so I take my time memorizing the details.

It always felt illicit before, like I was breaking some rule by staring at him, appreciating the features that make him up.

But now it feels like a requirement before our time runs out.

My gaze finds the scar on his chin. I reach my hand up, letting my fingers run along the length of it.

“Where did this come from?”

“The scar?”

“No, the SpongeBob tattoo.”

He shoots me a glare, doing his best to feign annoyance, even as his eyes glint with amusement. “A hockey stick.”

“When?”

“Summer before fourth grade. My friend Taylor and I were playing hockey in the driveway with a tennis ball. Apparently, Taylor never heard of high-sticking.”

I sigh dramatically. “Fucking Taylor.”

He smiles. “Fucking Taylor.”

His hand reaches over and traces the seam of my lips. Then he runs the back of his fingers across my freckles. “Where did these come from?”

“My dad, I think.”

A moment passes. “Are you still in touch with him?”

I shake my head, an almost imperceptible motion. “He tried for a while, but then Mom remarried. So did he. I used to get cards on my birthday, but then those stopped, too.”

Something in his demeanor alters, and the sardonic tinge to his expression dissolves. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I don’t remember much about him.”

“What do you remember?”

Part of me wants to dismiss the question.

Change the subject and move on. But a larger part wants to tell him everything; I want him to know me.

So, I let out a shaky breath and let the memory come rushing back.

“Every Saturday morning, my dad would make us pancakes. It didn’t matter if he and my mom were fighting or ignoring each other.

Saturday he would get up early, make a huge pile of pancakes, and then blast the same song to wake me up.

And I remember coming down the stairs to find him dancing around the kitchen with the music blaring, singing along as he set the table. ”

Nathan’s gaze finally meets my eyes. “What was the song?”

I smile, hoping it doesn’t look too sad. “?‘The Pina Colada Song.’?”

He’s studying my face like he can read the hidden language under my expression, the echo of the sharp pain that the years had dulled, the hurt and resignation. But the hints of joy and happiness there as well. Then he smiles, too.

After a moment I look away, and my gaze finds the bouquet of flowers on the dining table. “What about those?”

He turns to steal a glance at them. “They’re from my mom.”

“Your mom sent you flowers?”

“She has this whole philosophy. Says the sign of a good life is never having enough vases, because that means you’re getting more flowers than you know what to do with. So she sends them to me all the time to celebrate mundane accomplishments.”

I like that. “What are those for?”

He sighs. “The twenty-seventh anniversary of losing my first tooth.”

A laugh bursts out of me. “Oh my God, that’s amazing.”

“Try telling me that in college when I would get a dozen roses delivered to my dorm room.”

“At least you didn’t ask her to stop.”

He seems to consider. “I did once. When I was dating Rebecca.”

My smile fades. I know we’re dancing a fine line, toying with these cracks we’ve unearthed in each other. But I don’t care. I’m desperate for details that will be cut off from me in just a couple days.

“Why?” I ask.

“I think she resented the fact that her boyfriend got more flowers than she did.” His lip twitches with a grin, but it doesn’t stick. He lets his gaze drift back to my feet. Silence envelops us again before he continues. “She was sleeping with a partner at her firm. That’s why we broke up.”

The shock is so acute that it takes me a moment before I remember to speak. “Nate—”

“We had been growing apart for a while. Even before my mom’s diagnosis.

I think since we assumed our relationship was easy, we both stopped trying.

She was doing so well at work, and I was barely home, traveling between the office and my parents’ house…

” He focuses on his lap, where his fingers are wrapped around my toes.

“I took it for granted. Like we had arrived at the happily-ever-after part of the story and that was it.”

“Did she tell you there was an issue?”

He shakes his head slowly. “It took me a long time to even suspect something was going on. When I finally asked her, she said I was crazy. That it wasn’t what I thought.

And I trusted her. It never entered my mind not to.

In the end, I think that hurt more than the cheating.

” He pauses. “In a weird way, I think she’s the reason I made partner.

I started working all the time, doing anything to keep busy.

To stop thinking about her. About anything. ”

I swallow. “I’m so sorry.”

He’s still staring down but his eyes are unfocused, as if he’s lingering on the memory. Then he seems to shake it loose and offers me a small grin. “The worst part was that my mom thought it was her fault.”

“What?”

“When I called to tell my parents that we broke up, she kept apologizing and asked, ‘Was it because of the flowers?’ It took me months to convince her it wasn’t her fault. And I knew the minute she finally believed me, because they started arriving again.”

He starts to chuckle, a deep laugh that fills the room, and I can’t help joining. Even after it fades, he still has a smile on his face, the dimple dipping into his cheek, as he rubs his thumb against my arch.

“What about the ‘I Hate It Here’ mug in your office?” he asks softly. “I’ve always felt like there’s a story there.”

“That was a gift from Josh when I got into law school.”

He nods. An odd silence descends, like we’ve made some sort of unspoken agreement never to discuss this area where our lives intersect. But he eventually breaks it. “How did you two meet?”

“We went to Fordham together,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. Like sharing this part of me is something I do all the time. “We have this tight group of friends that all graduated together, but he and I met first, at the beginning of our freshman year.”

His thumb draws lazy circles on my ankle. “Tell me about them.”

So I do. I start with those first few weeks on campus, how Josh and I met and never left each other’s side for the next four years.

How I tutored Travis in French and coached him in public speaking.

How I met Jillian sophomore year and then introduced her to Josh.

How Maggie joined us in an off-campus apartment the following year and how I convinced Travis to finally ask her out after graduation.

How I helped Josh plan his proposal to Jillian, and how I organized almost all the holidays we spent at their apartment, the group hangouts before Maggie and Travis moved upstate, before the divorce became real.

I tell Nathan all the mundane details, and he hangs on every word.

When I’m done, Nathan says, “So, you take care of everybody.”

The way he says it, the present tense, rings in my ears. “Yeah.”

A longer moment. Then, “And who takes care of you?”

My pulse bucks as I maintain his gaze. His expression is unreadable as he studies my face. It’s like he sees the edit points, the scars from where I’ve removed the beating heart of this thing.

“What makes you think I need anyone to take care of me?” I finally ask.

Then there’s that frown, the one that balances between amusement and derision. “Bea, you were evicted from your apartment yesterday while wearing the wrong day of your days-of-the-week underwear.’?”

I gape at him, then I kick my foot out to free it from his grip. “I wasn’t evicted! It was a temporary order to vacate!”

He starts laughing, holding tight to my ankle as I kick out my other foot. He catches that one, too.

“And I own other underwear. It’s not like they’re all days of the week!”

“Okay,” he says through his smile, in that way that implies he doesn’t believe me at all.

“God, you’re such an asshole.” I’m trying so hard to bite back my smile as I kick both of my legs that I only succeed in falling off the sofa onto the floor.

Nathan follows me down to the ground, still holding both of my ankles and pulling me toward him so he’s kneeling between my thighs. My protests are punctuated by laughter as I buck once more, but then he leans down, kissing the soft skin where my sweater has ridden up and exposed my stomach.

“Do you want to fight, or do you want to do something else?” he murmurs.

I huff. “I haven’t decided yet.”

I can feel him smile into my skin as he makes a slow trail of kisses across my stomach. My muscles contract under the tickle of his stubble, as his tongue darts out to circle my navel. I twist beneath him again, but this time it isn’t to free myself, but to pull my sweater over my head.

He mirrors my movement, pulling his T-shirt off. I run my hand up his chest, my nails testing the hard muscles.

God, I’m not going to get enough of this. I’ll never get enough of him.

I suppress the thought as he lets go of my ankles so his hands can journey up to bracket my hips, holding me in place. He dips his head down, grazing his lips across the space between my breasts.

“We should stop,” he murmurs.

“Why?”

“We haven’t left the apartment all day. We should go out, do something.”

“I don’t want to go out and do something. I want to stay here and get as much of you as I can.”

He looks up, meeting my eyes as his fingers absently caress my hips. “Yeah?”

My heart trips, trying to read his expression. “Is that selfish?”

He does a slow audit of my eyes, my lips, my freckles. “That’s what this weekend is about, Bea. Being selfish.”

He’s not wrong. There’s a stopwatch running on this weekend. And while we had spent weeks trying to avoid this happening at all, we had also somehow bypassed all the bullshit of dating. I know him and he knows me, and now it’s just about being together. For a couple of days, at least.

“You didn’t have any plans before I called?” I reach up and run a hand through his short hair.

“No.” He places a kiss against my sternum.

I smile. “What about work?”

He hums against my skin. “Nothing that can’t wait until Monday.”

“That’s it?”

He sighs, hands now wrapped around my rib cage as his mouth journeys up to the hollow of my throat. “I usually go for a run.”

“Well, I can do that,” I whisper, my breath catching as his thumbs trace under my breasts.

He licks my collarbone. “Do what?”

“Run.”

He kisses up to my jaw. “Okay.”

“I’m good at running.”

He nips my earlobe. “That’s great.”

“We should go.”

He finally leans back, a wry expression on his face. “You want to go for a run?”

“Sure.”

“All right,” he whispers. “But for now, I’m just going to give you a few orgasms. Okay?”

I close my eyes and work to sound exasperated. “Okay.”

He chuckles as he wraps his arms around me, pressing his hips into mine, and the topic of leaving the apartment doesn’t come up again.