With Love, from Cold World, page 15
“I knew it was rigged.”
He switched off the harsh fluorescent overhead light, so the office was lit instead by the Christmas lights on the fake plant in the corner. He dropped down to sit on the carpet next to it, and after a moment Lauren sank down next to him, tucking her legs under her.
He unlocked his phone and handed it to her. “Your turn.”
“Number four,” she said, biting her lip. “Tell me a secret.”
He leaned his head back on the wall, closing his eyes. “My passcode is just my house number, with the first two digits repeated. So one-six-eight-two-one-six. Now you can get into my phone without me.”
“That’s not a secret.”
He cracked one eye open to look at her. “Do you go around telling people your personal security information?”
“Well, no,” she admitted. “But you know what I mean. It’s not like that number means anything. It’s not the number of stuffed animals you slept with as a kid or the number of times you got blackout drunk and tried to jump off a roof.”
“One stuffed animal,” he said, “for the record. A dalmatian named Sparky my sister got me for Christmas when I was four. Unfortunately, I left Sparky at an Olive Garden when I was nine. And I’ve never gotten blackout drunk and jumped off the roof, but presumably it would only take one time?”
“Okay,” she said. “Point taken.”
Unconsciously, he rubbed his chest, the area above his heart where he saw the same four-digit number every morning when he looked in the mirror. “You asked me about my tattoos once,” he said. “The truth is that most of them don’t really mean anything—they’re just stuff I thought looked cool. Some of them I even got on a whim, or a dare.” He pointed to a small illustration of a flying saucer on his forearm, done in a solid black outline with some simple shading. “Like this one. Elliot had to go to this convention to cover a story, and there was an artist doing some flash work on the main floor. Elliot wanted to know who would get something as permanent as a tattoo that way, I said why not, they dared me to do it, and half an hour later I had this on my arm.”
Lauren was looking at his arms with such focused attention now that he felt goose bumps prickle across his skin. And he generally ran warm—it was the reason why he rarely bothered with long-sleeved shirts even with the air conditioning running so cold inside. It wasn’t just so he could show off his arms, whatever Lauren might think. Although with the way she was looking at him now, it gave him further reason not to cover up.
“You never have any regrets?” she asked.
“Nah.”
“I guess by now you have so many, it probably doesn’t feel like such a big deal. Was it hard to choose your first one?”
He rubbed at his chest again, thinking back to the tattoo parlor he’d walked into on his eighteenth birthday, the less than ten minutes it had taken to mark his body with the only tattoo he did regret. “I got the numbers six-five-four-three tattooed right here,” he said, poking a finger so hard into the muscle around his heart that it almost hurt. “That was the number of days I lived in my parents’ house. When I figured that out, it seemed significant somehow, that the number so perfectly descended like that. I don’t know.”
She was watching his face now, instead of looking at his arms, and it felt like she could see right through him down to his broken, shitty inside. “Was that a homesick kind of tribute, or more of a newfound independence kind of thing?”
“Neither?” He gave a bitter laugh. “Both? When I was seventeen, one of my dad’s parishioners saw me making out with my boyfriend. Like I told you, my dad is a pastor, and while I know there are churches that are LGBTQ-friendly, let’s just say that my dad’s church was . . . definitely not. Long story short, we had a big fight, stuff was said, and he told me to pack my bags and get out of his house.”
It had been a while since Asa had allowed himself to think about that last day. He’d come home from school to find his dad waiting for him at the kitchen table. His dad would often sit there with his books and papers, when he was preparing a sermon or working on church business, but it was never a great sign when he sat there with nothing in front of him but his hands, clenched together on the table. Those hands had never been raised against Asa, but he feared his father in other ways—the way his booming voice could rattle the windows, the way his disapproval could swallow you up like a sinkhole.
His father had given him the chance to deny it, even with the photographic evidence. Sometimes, late at night if Asa couldn’t sleep, he still wondered how things might have gone differently if he’d just done that. Said that he didn’t know what the parishioner was talking about, he hadn’t even been near that Burger King, much less sucking face with some random dude. He had a feeling his father would’ve accepted it—not because he believed the explanation, deep down, but because it was easier to sweep the truth under the rug and move on as if nothing had happened.
Instead, he’d owned up to it. The worst part—the part he never let himself think about, no matter how late it was—had been the rush of exhilaration and power he’d felt at finally getting the words out. He’d told his dad to his face that he was bi, that his boyfriend’s name was Mark, and that he’d love to bring Mark home for dinner to introduce him to the family.
Any confidence had been woefully naive, and short-lived. Asa’s father had said a lot of ugly things that Asa tried not to let take up space in his head anymore, although the general refrain of no son of mine was always there, pulsing like a heartbeat. Asa’s mother had been there, lingering in the kitchen. He’d cried, she’d cried, but she hadn’t intervened. An hour later, Asa had two bags packed and was on Mark’s doorstep. That relationship hadn’t lasted long—he and Mark were never destined to be anything more than a fun couple of months, and he could tell Mark’s parents were sick of having him in the house—but luckily by then Asa had landed the job at Cold World and could rent his own place.
“I’m sorry,” Lauren said now, her soft voice pulling him back up from the memories. “That must’ve been really hard, to hear that from your own father. You deserved to be treated with love and support, not kicked out.”
“It’s funny,” he said, “because I say the same thing all the time to these teens I counsel through a crisis text line once a week. They’re twelve, thirteen, sixteen years old, and wondering how to come out or how to ask their parents about transitioning or what to do about bullying at school. And I try to listen to their problems, validate their experiences, remind them that they’re worthy. But sometimes I wish I could get on a direct line with their parents or their peers or whoever, and just say, do you have any idea how much this kid cares? How much they internalize your words, how much they want to please you, how much thought they’ve given to trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the world? Can’t you just for one fucking second listen to them, and tell them that they’re worthy, so that they hear it from you?”
His eyes were burning, and he scrubbed his hand over his face, trying to unclench his jaw. “Obviously, there are also lots of people out there who have beautiful stories of support and acceptance. We don’t tend to see as many of them through the crisis line, so my data set is a little skewed here. Elliot’s parents have a cake delivered to the house every year on the anniversary of when Elliot came out to them. And it’s Publix buttercream, so you know that shit’s real love.”
Lauren smiled. “You’re really fortunate to have found Elliot, and Kiki, and John. They seem like great friends.”
“The best,” Asa said. “Whose turn is it? I’ve lost track.”
“Yours,” she said. “But we can stop, if you want. It’s late.”
He’d already tapped the button for a new randomly generated number, and he held up his phone to show her the six on the screen. “And miss a chance to get a compliment? No way. Tell me something good about myself.”
She compressed her bottom lip with her teeth, as if thinking. He didn’t know if she even realized how close she was sitting to him by now. If he turned at all they’d be practically nose to nose.
“Don’t be so quick with it,” he said dryly. “I’ll get a big head.”
“You smell really good,” she blurted, then covered her face with her hands, like she needed to physically retreat from the words. But he wasn’t about to let her off that easily. He lifted his arm, giving it a sniff.
“Do I?”
“It’s your soap or something,” she said. “It’s not even really a compliment to you. More like a compliment to the products you use. Tell me what kind of soap it is and I’ll leave the company a really nice online review.”
“I know that trick. You want the name so you can buy it for yourself and smell me all the time.”
“I’m not going to buy it—”
“You want to carve a little soap doll of me. It’s sick. I refuse to feed this obsession.”
“More like a voodoo doll, and I know right where I’d stick the first pin.”
Her eyes widened, her mouth in an O, like she only just heard what she’d said and was shocked by her own words. He mirrored the expression right back at her, although he was laughing.
“Damn,” he said. “Okay. I’ll behave my good-smelling self.”
She rolled her eyes, although a smile tugged at her own mouth. “I knew I should’ve just told you I admired your ice skating skills.”
“Whoa.” He turned toward her, holding his hands up in a gesture of wait just a minute there. “Is that a slam on my earlier compliment? Because that was genuine, I’ll have you know. I thought it was really cool that you took the time to give that family a perfect memory. Very un-robot-like.”
“It was quite a nice compliment,” she said with a tilt of her chin. “I appreciated it.”
But he thought he understood. Her compliment to him had left her feeling vulnerable. It wasn’t just about him but about her reaction to him. He had plenty of those kinds of compliments, too. He just hadn’t known if she would welcome one.
Well, here went nothing.
“You look incredibly hot in that dress,” he said.
“Really?” Her voice pitched up in a squeak.
He’d been aiming for a matter-of-fact tone but didn’t quite know if he’d achieved it. If he were talking about a painting in a museum, or a sunset over the beach, he’d be able to talk about it without getting weird, right? He should be able to tell Lauren how the vibrant red of the dress looked against her pale skin, how sexy her delicate ankle bone was where she’d crossed her bare feet, how her mouth . . . her perfect mouth . . .
Was saying something. He mentally shook himself and tried to tune back in.
“I feel stupid for even wearing it,” she said, smoothing down the red skirt. “I know tonight was never going to be a date. Not really.”
“Lauren.” At this point it wasn’t even about playing a game, it was about helping her see the facts that should’ve been in neon lights right in front of her face. “You’re beautiful. You’re always beautiful. Yesterday I would’ve said your best bet to get Daniel’s head out of his ass long enough to notice it would’ve been to glue his phone to your forehead. But tonight . . .” He let his gaze drop to the small swell of her breasts under the red fabric, the slight gap that opened up between the neckline and her skin when she took a shallow breath. When he looked up again, her eyes were two bright, black sparks.
“Tonight I would say that your best bet is definitely that dress.”
Chapter
Thirteen
You’re always beautiful. Asa had definitely outdone himself with the compliments, and it hadn’t even been his turn to give any. But it was the throwaway tone to his voice when he’d said that particular one that made her actually believe it.
And there was that flare in his eyes as he’d looked her over. It was hard not to believe that, too.
She was attracted to Asa Williamson. She didn’t know exactly when it had happened—probably sometime around when she was sniffing him in the break room—but there it was. And for the first time, she thought maybe there was a chance that he reciprocated the feeling.
Then again, she’d misjudged this kind of thing before.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” she asked.
Immediately, she wished there were a randomly generated number that would allow her to shove the words back down her throat. Especially when his eyes searched her face, a line creasing his forehead. He had no idea what she was talking about. He probably didn’t even remember. He’d blocked it from his memory . . .
“I didn’t think you’d want me to,” he said.
She swallowed. Now that she’d gone this far out on this limb, she supposed she might as well inch out a little more. “There was mistletoe,” she said. “It’s like . . . a rule.”
“You never struck me as a stickler for Christmas tradition.”
He was right, of course. The year before, she’d railed against Secret Santa, of all things. She couldn’t be surprised when he then assumed she’d want nothing to do with something as silly and inappropriate as kissing under the mistletoe. She was sorry she’d brought it up.
“I’m a stickler for most things,” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “In case you hadn’t noticed. Like I just realized I broke the rules of our game by asking that question, so please. Disregard it.”
“What if I want to regard it?”
Lauren’s gaze met his before skittering away. She had no idea what he meant by that, was scared to even consider the possibilities. Time to climb down from this tree.
“It’s seriously late,” she said. “And we both have work tomorrow . . . which is a little ironic, since we’re currently at work.”
He rubbed his hands on his jean-clad thighs. They were sitting close enough that the motion ruffled the hem of her skirt a little, caused it to flip up and reveal the barest extra millimeter of skin. It was such a micro movement, and yet Lauren noticed it. Somehow, she knew Asa had, too.
“You got an unauthorized question,” he said, his voice rough. “It’s only fair if I get one.”
She lifted her chin. “Fine. In the interest of fairness.”
“Did you want me to kiss you?”
Don’t look at his mouth. Don’t look at his mouth. She was trying to keep her cool during this conversation, and it wouldn’t work if she saw his lips forming those words. She knew it was useless to deny it outright—why would she have even brought it up in the first place? At the same time, this conversation felt like a minefield, and she was scared to take the next step.
“I thought it would be nice,” she said finally, smoothing the crinkled hem of her skirt back down. “It’s kind of a nice tradition.”
“No,” he said, tilting his head, like he was trying to get her attention, or searching her face for an answer to some question. It was impossible not to look up, not to stare at his mouth. There was a small scar on his lower lip, a perfect circle that must’ve been from a piercing at some point. She watched the corner of his mouth, waiting for it to quirk up, for a sign that he was laughing at her. But for once, he looked completely serious.
“I meant, did you want me to kiss you?”
The emphasis on that one word said it all. He wasn’t asking if she wanted a generic mistletoe kiss at a holiday party. He was asking if she cared that the kiss came specifically from him.
Even a few weeks ago, Lauren would’ve said of course not. She barely knew Asa Williamson, and what she knew of him made it clear a friendship between them would be unlikely. Anything more than friendship even more unlikely. He was well-liked, easygoing, and confident. She was uptight and nervous and shy. He’d probably kissed a dozen people for no reason other than he felt like it, whereas she was always holding back, scared to put herself out there for fear of rejection.
That same instinct told her now that this would all be over if she simply said no, not you. It could’ve been anyone, she could say. You just happened to be there.
Instead she said one word, which came out more like a sigh. “Yes.”
His hand clenched on his knee. She could feel him humming with a low frequency beside her—although maybe that was a projection, an echo of the unbearable tension she felt in her own body. She pressed her thighs together, taking a deep breath to slow her heart rate.
She glanced at him, trying to give him a look like Well, this is awkward, but he didn’t look capable of cracking his usual joke.
“Let me make it up to you,” he said. And then his fingers were at her jaw, tilting her face toward his, and his mouth was on hers.
It started off almost sweet, almost like the kiss they would’ve had under the mistletoe a year ago in front of all their coworkers. He pressed his lips to hers for the second that would’ve been appropriate for that kiss, but just when she expected him to pull away, he urged her mouth open with his tongue. He tasted of hot chocolate and courage, and she opened up for him, kissing him back like she wanted both for herself.
His hand was splayed full across her cheek by now, a warm imprint on her skin, and she felt suddenly dizzy at the idea that he was touching her, that she could touch him back. His ink-covered arms, his broad shoulders, the strip of skin where his T-shirt rode up . . . she was greedy for all of it.
But she was too shy to assert herself like that, so she settled for resting her hands lightly on his thighs. The denim was rough beneath her fingertips, and she tried not to press hard enough to feel the heat of him through the fabric. Already her stomach was a swirling flame, licking up into her chest as he deepened the kiss.
“Touch me,” he said.
Her hands tightened reflexively. So much for not feeling the heat. “Where?”
He smiled against her mouth. “Anywhere.”
