Page 44 of Necessary Space

“And where are you?”

“The bathroom,” I admitted.

“Why? And don’t say something sarcastic like so I can talk to you in private.” He mocked me with the last part of his sentence, trying to sound like me and failing spectacularly.

“He makes me feel like rules can be broken. Like they should be.”

“And your rules have always been walls, Miles. Haven’t they? For you, rules have been things you throw at other people to keep them at a distance, yeah?”

“Maybe?” My voice was scratchy. I sounded uncertain, and that was horrible for all of us.

“I don’t think there’s any harm in trying something new sometimes. Hell, he’s trying something new with you too, isn’t he? Didn’t you say he didn’t date younger men?”

“Yeah.”

“We can talk about this later if you haven’t sorted it out on your own,” Grayson promised. “But I bet you will.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“Please go back to your date,” he pleaded, laugh lacing the tone. “If this man has you so tangled up that you’re hiding in a bathroom to get a pep talk, I love him already. Bring him home to meet me.”

I scoffed. “I would never.”

“If you don’t hang up right now, I’m going to wait up for you to come home, and that won’t be fun for any of us, will it?”

“I hate you.”

“Love yo—”

I disconnected the call before Grayson could finish patronizing me. I didn’t so much feel better as I felt more seen. His observation about rules being walls wasn’t off base, and much like I’d told Hendrix before, I didn’t want to date him because I didn’t want to fall in love with him. Or rather, I knew I would fall in love with him and maybe that was exactly what I wanted after all.

Neither prospect sounded appealing, but neither prospect was avoidable. I slid my phone back into my pocket and unlocked the door. Stopping to wash my hands for no reason at all, I splashed some water on my face and headed back to the patio. When my feet hit the concrete, Hendrix looked up at me and smiled. It was small, contained, but sincere and something in my chest twisted tight around my lungs.

“Sorry,” I said, sliding back into my seat and readjusting my napkin on my lap. Our dinner had come in my absence and both plates looked delicious. Both plates looked like a distraction.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I picked up my knife, ready to fake it until I could make it. “So, where were we?”

Hendrix stabbed his fork into half of a red potato, looking up at me like he couldn’t already read me like a book.

“You’d asked me what more looked like to me,” he said.

“Alright.” I gave him a smile that felt as sincere as it could. “And what’s your answer?”

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Hendrix

More,as it turned out, looked a lot like falling asleep on my couch after dinner with my head propped on Miles’s shoulder. That’s not what I’d intended and definitely hadn’t been on the list of things we’d discussed over our meal.

With a bottle of wine between us, more sounded like date nights and sleepovers, definite exclusivity, and an open-ended outlook on the future.

After waking me up with a gentle shake of my thigh, more turned into Miles supporting my weight down the hall, stripping me out of my clothes, and tucking me into bed. His fingers might have lingered a little bit longer on the crease of my ass or the swell of my waist, but he was otherwise absolutely chaste as he undressed me. Even in my half-drunk haze, I could see the indecision on his face, the way his weight shifted as he tried to decide whether to stay or go.

“More is staying,” I whispered, pulling back the covers.

And so he’d undressed and climbed into bed beside me, tucking me into the crook of his body, in a place I never expected to fit. I fell asleep quickly and easily, waking up twenty minutes before my alarm to a warm but empty bed. I found my coffee pot filled and ready to brew, with a handwritten post-it slapped on the carafe that read,