Page 8 of Ready or Not (The Nape #I)

I was still unsure of what I wanted, however, I knew how I felt.

Like I had told myself earlier, my original plan was only to admire her and keep it pushing.

I wasn’t interested in entertaining anything romantic—not because I was scared or unready, but because I wasn’t sure what would blossom out of our interaction. Used to flings that never made it past the preliminary stage, I had grown comfortable with the fleeting nature of connections.

They came, they went, and they left no more than an echo.

Yet as we spent more time together… something started to shift.

And it made me want to dive deeper into who she was, craving to further understand her.

However, I had to ask myself if it was just the allure of something new, something unexplored, that was pulling me in…

Or was it something real?

I had to ask myself what I wanted with this beautiful woman who I just met a couple of hours ago.

What was my next plan?

Where did I go from here?

I didn’t have the answer to these things, however, I knew one thing: I caught feelings and I wasn't sure how to handle them.

“Alright,” she said, setting down her glass with a satisfied clink. “I’ve decided.”

“Have you now?” I asked, fighting to keep my tone light despite the internal chaos.

Ay mami.

When did it get so damn hard to breathe?

She nodded, raising an eyebrow like she was about to present me with the most important thing known to man.

“This drink? Absolute ten out of ten.” She gestured dramatically toward the glass. “In fact, it might be my new favorite thing.”

My lips twitched into a grin as I leaned in closer, resting my forearm on the table between us. “Your new favorite thing, huh? That's a bold statement. You sure about that, Spill-Prone?”

“Absolutely sure. You’re tripping if you try to tell me they got something better than this… wait, do they?”

I nodded, though I wasn’t really sure what I was agreeing to.

My focus had narrowed entirely on her—a lockdown of my senses I hadn’t prepared for.

The way she talked was full of energy—her hands emphasized every word, and her head tilted slightly when she laughed. It all appeared so natural, as if she was entirely free from any self-consciousness.

Why was I picking up on these things so much?

Each tilt of her head, each flick of her fingers, each easy grin—none of it should have mattered, yet all of it did. I was being overly observant… maybe even ridiculous because I was cataloguing things that made no sense to keep track of.

“So what about you?” she asked suddenly, shifting the spotlight back onto me as she rested her chin in her palm.

I cleared my throat, suddenly feeling like a deer caught in headlights. “What about me?”

“You know more about me than I know about you,” she said, licking her lip, and the sight of her undid me. Her tongue darted out just for a second, and the gesture was enough to derail my train of thought, imagining inappropriate things I had no business thinking about.

“You know about my obsession with this drink,” she continued, oblivious to the spiral my mind had just taken.

“You know what I do for a living, my obsession with old school songs and indie films, that I love pilates and ballet, and how I apparently have a habit of spilling things, which, for the record, I don’t think is entirely fair.

But what about you? What’s something I should know? ”

“You know enough about me?—”

“I know about your love life, that you’re the oldest of three with two younger sisters, you’re an art director who loves to observe people, you like cooking because your abuela taught you, the fact that you’re a Dominican from the Bronx—but that's obvious?—”

I fake-gasped. “That’s obvious?”

“Sir,” she smacked her lips and rolled those beautiful eyes of hers. “You have a DR chain on. It’s obvious that you’re a papi—omg did I just say something cringe out loud?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “Papi? That’s how you see me? That’s my new nickname?”

“I never meant—” she paused, catching onto my deflecting and narrowing her eyes at me like she was figuring out a puzzle. “You’re slick. I see what you’re doing.”

I batted my eyelashes. “Doing what?”

“You’re not getting off that easy.”

“But you got me all figured out. You even got a nickname for me now.”

“Barely,” she shot back. "Barely is the key word here. I’ve only scratched the surface, but I want more.”

“Then ask for more,” my voice lowered an octave as I leaned forward into her personal space, and she didn’t back away. Instead, she held her ground, her gaze steady, though I noticed the faintest rise in her chest as she inhaled.

“What’s something you’ve never told anyone?” Her voice was suddenly softer, filled with a sexual undertone, and it turned me on in a way that made my pulse quicken. I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself, yet her proximity was wrecking my composure.

“A secret?” My voice came out a lot deeper and breathier than I intended, betraying exactly how much she affected me.

“Yes,” she replied, leaning in just a fraction closer, as if daring me to close the gap entirely.

Ay… Dios, ayúdame.

I ran my thumb along the edge of my glass, stalling as I dug through myself for something small enough to offer yet big enough to mean something. Finally, I stopped fidgeting and looked at her dead-on.

“I’m terrified of losing control.”

Her eyes softened at my confession, and for a moment, she didn’t say anything—just studied me like she was trying to see past it all. Past the guarded layers, past the smooth deflections. My heart pounded in my chest, each beat echoing in my ears as I waited for her reaction.

“Control,” she repeated quietly, almost to herself. She leaned back slightly, however, her gaze never wavered from mine. “Like what kind of control?”

I shrugged and forced a small chuckle, trying to lighten the moment even though it felt like I had just exposed a nerve. “The kind that keeps everything in check. Keeps people at a distance or situations from getting… messy.”

Her lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. “Messy like spilled drinks?”

“No, Spill-prone,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Messy like emotions.”

She tilted her head, considering that for a moment. Her fingers absentmindedly traced patterns on the table between us.

“That’s heavy… You do realize that it’s a human thing to be a little messy, right?”

I grimaced. “Yeah, I get that. But it doesn’t mean I like it.”

She studied me for a moment, her expression unreadable, then leaned forward again, closing the distance I hadn’t realized had grown between us.

Her hair caught the low light of the bar, shimmering like some kind of halo, and suddenly, I wasn’t sure if my confession had made her more intrigued or if she was quietly plotting my demise with all this closeness.

“Maybe you don’t have to like it,” she said finally, her voice a low murmur that tangled itself around me, pulling me deeper into her magnetic pull. “Maybe you just have to accept it. Let it… happen for once and you’ll see that it’s not so bad.”

I opened my mouth to respond—to deflect or make a joke or something that would put me back on solid ground—yet nothing came out.

She disarming me with just a few words.

Smirking at my silence, it was almost as if she knew exactly what was happening inside my head. That infuriatingly beautiful smirk—it was the kind of expression that made you want to both kiss someone senseless and argue with them just for the sake of seeing what else might unfold.

I leaned back slightly, trying to regain some sense of control, but her gaze followed me like it was tethered to mine.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Who said it’s supposed to be easy?” she shrugged, her hand moving to cradle her empty glass, swirling the liquid inside absently. “The good things never are.”

“Is that your philosophy on life?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” she said. “Do you disagree?”

“I—” I paused. “I don’t know if I agree or disagree with you yet.”

“Fair enough,” she said, tipping her glass in a mock toast before setting it back down. “But you can’t stay on the fence forever, you know. That’s just another way of keeping control.”

You can’t stay on the fence forever , her words replayed as I tried to process them, but they lodged themselves in my mind like splinters.

Annoying.

Persistent.

Impossible to ignore.

Reminding me that I needed to decide what I wanted and whether I was ready to reach for it, or if I’d let it slip through my fingers like so many other things.