Page 82 of Necessary Time

“On the house,” he said. “To enjoy while you browse the menu.”

He left us before I could tell him that I was underage, but I was almost legal, only a few hours to go, and I didn’t see the harm in enjoying it if it was free. I clearly looked the part.

“Are you going to tell on me?” I asked, raising the glass to my lips.

He shook his head.

“Are you going to tell me why the thing with Miles has you so upset?”

The wine was dry and rich, like fruit and chocolate. I wasn’t a wine connoisseur by any means, a somm…whatever they were called, but I knew it at least tasted nice.

“I thought we’d agreed that this was going to be between us,” he said.

“We did, but like, not forever? We’d agreed that we’d take things slow and now I have your dick in my mouth almost every night before bed. That doesn’t seem slow anymore.”

Colin closed his eyes and exhaled softly, like the visual of what I’d just said distracted him from the conversation he’d been trying to have in the first place.

“Can you keep your voice down?”

“There’s no one here who knows us,” I reminded him, lifting my wine glass as confirmation. “No one knows Hendrix.”

“It’s not that.” He pulled his hand away and tucked it beneath the table on his lap.

I set the wine down and leaned back in my seat, giving him time to say whatever he had to say. Even when Colin and I had first started fooling around, he’d never been this cagey with me about anything. One of the things I liked the most about him was how easy it was to talk to him, but nothing between us since Miles had shown up at my apartment felt easy.

“What is it? Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No. No, nothing like that.”

“Is it because I said I was ready to tell my brother?” I hedged, and the dark wash of nerves that settled on Colin’s face was all the confirmation I needed, whether he was willing to admit it or not.

“No. Well. Yes.”

“That was clear.”

He sighed. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

My heart skipped in my chest. I didn’t know what to expect, but my brain immediately prepared me for the worst.

Colin had met someone else.

He’d had sex with someone else.

Hendrix already knew.

He was bored of me.

The list was growing too quickly for me to get a handle on, and I needed him to put me out of my misery. Just hours before, I’d been out shopping with Grayson, talking about how I was pretty sure I was falling in love with Colin. Admitting to Grayson that I wanted to takethe next stepwith Colin on my birthday and listening with a red face while he gave me information about what kind of lube I needed to buy and also the importance of “cleaning out.”

That was what had taken me so long in the shower, because Grayson wouldn’t let me go home unprepared so I’d given myself a freaking enema in the bathroom and then had to deal withallof that.

All I’d wanted was to celebrate my job and my birthday with the man I had really ridiculous feelings for. I’d let Grayson push pretty much any item of clothing he wanted onto me because I wanted to make sure Colin saw me as a man, not a kid, and…

Everything was just going wrong.

“I’m listening,” I said, even though I barely was.

Outside, the fountain bubbled and gurgled, distracting me from the otherwise unbearable silence that had settled between us while I waited for Colin to say whatever it was he wanted to say.