Page 31

Exhaustion must have lulled her to sleep. Her head is pillowed on Wade’s chest as afternoon light streams through the curtains, telling her it’s only been a few hours.

In all the times she imagined them together, whenever she allowed herself that indulgence, she never pictured throwing herself at him and being rejected. Mostly because she never assumed she could be brave enough to get that far.

“Hey, you good?” he asks gently.

Kara has to face the consequences of her actions and do her best to pick up the pieces. What must he think of her now? When she tilts her head to find his face, she’s shocked by the worry there. All those lines etched into his skin are twice as deep, and the most tentative frown tugs at his lips.

“I’m good,” she lies. “Are you?”

Wade nods, but it feels false. Only the start of a conversation he can’t finish.

“I um…I should…” she leans up, wincing at how the most intimate part of her pushes against his thigh. “Take a shower.”

She doesn’t want to leave. She wants to sit here until they hash this out and all the gray areas make sense. Or, to apologize a hundred times for pushing a boundary that’s made him uncomfortable in an effort to soothe his pain.

“Okay. Yeah. Sure,” he replies.

They stare at each other, fleeting and flickering, until she turns to leave. His hand on her arm stops the effort and launches nervous anticipation. She’s ready for him to tell her she’s gone too far and he’s not ready for this kind of closeness with anyone, especially not with her.

That confession doesn’t come. Eventually, his hand falls away in defeat.

Her disappointment is tangible, but she can’t lay this all on him. She isn’t doing much to address the elephant in the room either. She only slides off the bed, grabs a handful of clean clothes, and escapes to the bathroom.

She offered to have sex with her best friend.

Worse than that, she made it sound like a suggestion to run errands, as if it meant nothing more to her than a trip to the grocery store.

At the moment, being nonchalant seemed logical in an effort to protect her heart, but now she fears it only made things worse.

What the hell was she thinking? Offering to comfort fuck the only person she cares about in this ruined world has got to be the worse decision she’s made so far.

Half a tank of hot water is spent trying not to cry while the other half is consumed with forming a rational plan.

One thing is for certain, she can’t explain herself in any way that makes sense.

Can’t rip her heart open a second time and wait for it to be flayed.

She has to stay rational and matter-of-fact, make him understand that she was only trying to offer him an escape, and if he needed to use her body to feel free from his mind for even a moment, then it’s a price she’d been willing to pay.

She cannot let him know how devastated she is.

She only needs to separate her heart from the matter, which is so much easier said than done.

* * *

Wade takes his turn in the shower before joining her in the kitchen.

She can do this.

It’s what’s best for both of them.

“Wanna make lunch? We can watch those DVDs later. The comedy? Or maybe the mystery?”

He narrows his eyes, suspicious of her false smile. “Alright.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

If there’s one thing Kara is good at, it’s faking it until she feels it. Her only mistake is assuming that he won’t notice.

“I need you to know that we’re okay,” she begins evenly.

“What I said last night, what I offered, maybe it was overstepping, and if it was, then I’m sorry.

It won’t happen again. But if it wasn’t, and you only said no because of some ridiculous effort to protect me, then you don’t have to.

The offer stands. You can take whatever you need from me. It won’t change anything between us.”

He squints, his lips forming a thin line of confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“If you need to, we can. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t come to me, but if you’d rather not, then that’s okay, too.”

All of this sounded practical in her head before she started speaking.

You need the contact. I need it, too. It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.

The knife she’s slicing strawberries with hits the cutting board like it offended her. This should be a simple conversation between two consenting adults and it’s turned into a clusterfuck of her own making.

Wade’s hand closes over hers, stilling her movements until she’s forced to abandon the fruit.

Don’t say it because I already know.

Don’t tell me we’re only friends when I can read between the lines just fine.

Don’t tell me it was a mistake to speak these words out loud.

“You’re talking a lot about me and not at all about you,” he begins carefully.

She steps away, her back colliding with the counter, and arms crossing in a defensive barrier. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Feels like you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“I don’t wanna lose you,” Wade whispers. “It would mean something if we did that. Of course it would. Things would change.”

Some part of her relaxes a fraction at knowing he’s just as afraid they’ll drift apart.

“I had a lotta time to think while we were apart,” he continues.

“I used it all to think about you. What I’d do if I ever got the chance?

What I’d say. I could never be with you only because you think I need the comfort of a warm body.

That’s not what we are to each other, Kara. You’re so much more than that.”

She also had plenty of time to think. It gave her clarity on her feelings, she’s just painfully unskilled at acting on them. Her voice cracks when she replies, and she winces at the sound. “I’m sorry. I hate that I made you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t.” He strokes a hand down her opposite cheek, stopping at her jaw to encourage her to face him. “Come here.”

She’s conditioned to wait for the next hit as much as he is. Stepping forward while risking the fallout may be one of her hardest choices, but she wants nothing else except him. Has dreamed of nothing else for longer than they’ve been apart.

Her arms weave around his neck as she breathes him in, shuddering when he squeezes her tight to bury his face in the curve of her shoulder in the first full hug they’ve shared in years.

It feels so much different than she imagined because they are different.

She takes a moment to feel the warmth of his body enveloping her and enjoy what she feared she may never feel again.

“Are you still hungry?” His question comes out throaty and chaffed.

“Starving.”

He swallows hard and meets her stare with an intensity that flushes her cheeks. She’s having a hard time reading him and she tilts her head, her brows knitting together as if she could puzzle out the fine print etched somewhere into his skin.

They have never been the type for labels other than best friend. Today, there is a shift that she feels deep in her bones, even if neither of them are ready to do anything about it yet.

* * *

“Why do you sleep with your ass out?”

Kara pauses with a fake scowl. “Oh, so we’re going right into the important questions?”

He shrugs. “Just curious. Got all the covers around you last night. Didn’t leave me but a square foot of blanket, except your whole ass was out.”

“Are you offended by my ass?”

“What? No. Pfft. No.”

“I get hot, but the rest of me is always cold.” She’s made sure to position herself away from him, but apparently, he notices far more than he’s let on. “Try it sometime. It’s the best way to sleep. The ass behaves like a temperature regulator.”

They’re on the bed again with food spread out before them like a lazy Sunday brunch.

Close as they can get without being in each other’s laps, trading lines that feel like foreplay.

For two people who seem to have pumped the brakes on any progress in their relationship, it certainly feels like the dam has been broken instead.

‘ Ask me anything,’ she told him, unprepared for that first silly question.

“Your turn. Ask me something,” he grunts, shoving a cheese cube in his mouth.

“Favorite position?”

His eyes go wide. “That’s what this is now? Sex questions?”

“You wanna talk about favorite colors or go right for the good stuff?”

“I’m liking this blue you put me in all the time. It’s growing on me.”

“You look good in that.” She’s briefly distracted before remembering she led this conversation down a naughty path. She’s only trying to lighten the mood, make him laugh, get a roll of his eyes in response. “Go ahead. Favorite position.”

“Dunno,” he admits. “Been a long time. A real long time. Not sure anymore.”

Her face softens, fingers playing with his where they rest on her knee.

“What about you?”

It’s difficult to answer, even though there is one position that she’s always been curious about. She instantly regrets walking straight into this. “I’m not really sure, either. I haven’t…very much. After how we grew up, I never wanted anyone touching me.”

One thing they’ve never talked about is her dating life, or lack thereof. She knew about all his girlfriends, saw a different one on his arm every time he showed up, but she hadn’t been eager to let anyone in back then. She’s been even less inclined to fall into bed after the world ended.

He nods, giving her one of those slow, melting blinks. “I get that now. After what they…”

Kara squints. “After what?”

Now she’s confused. Maybe in the back of her mind, she knew exactly what Silas and his men had done to him, but hadn’t fully allowed herself to go there, preferring to hope she’d been wrong.

He looks at his plate instead of her, his tone monotone as it slices through her heart. “They found a lot of uses for me, especially in the beginning before the novelty wore off.”