Game Ender, page 11
She giggles and gently clinks her glass with mine. “And to the sneaky man that asked them to do it, all for me.” I chuckle and take a sip.
“You do realize you’ve set yourself up to fail now,” she says, placing the drink back on the table.
“Oh really?” I sit back in my chair and take her in. “And why’s that?”
“Because there’s no way you’re going to be able to top this night. I feel like a princess.”
I reach over and grab her hand, brushing my lips over her knuckles. “Better get used to it then because I’m just getting started.”
The food is delicious, the conversation between us seamless, but I know there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed. I mean, if I was her and I knew about it, I’d be dying to know the reasons why. How does one say ‘Oh, by the way, the first time we have sex I’m likely to blow in a minute flat because I’ve been hard up for you for months and haven’t had sex in over a year’?
It’s not often a thirty-five-year-old man who lives hard, plays harder, and takes life one day at a time goes from sex on tap to nothing on the flip of a dime, or in my case the positive result of an STD test.
“Can I ask you a question?” she says.
“Of course but I’ll tell you now, yes it’s really nine inches, no I’m not joining the seminary and yes, no, maybe, and sixty-nine.”
“Sixty-nine?”
“Everyone knows that the answer is always sixty-nine.”
She bites her lip, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling, drawing my attention to them. It just reminds me how much I want to kiss her again. How much I really want to do more than kiss her.
“So, nine inches?” she asks with a growing smile, her eyes dancing with amusement. This time I can’t hold back my laughter.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I tease. “Your question?”
Her eyes drop to the table and she tries to ease her fingers out of mine. I tighten my grip slightly and she stops, but she still doesn’t say anything.
I give her time, waiting for her to talk because whatever she wants to know, I’ll tell her. I want to move forward with her with nothing between us, no secrets, no lies, and no bullshit.
“Why have you . . .” she pauses and seems to steel herself before continuing, her eyes lifting to meet mine head on. “Okay, so let’s just get this out there. The girls talk, so you know that I know about—”
“Me not having sex in fifteen months?” Her eyes widen. She obviously didn’t think it had been that long.
“Amz . . .” I say softly. “You can ask me anything. I’m an open book for you, I want you to know about me and I want you to want to know. Okay?”
She nods and I continue. “Up until last year, I was rather liberal in my appreciation of the female species.”
Amy snorts then covers her mouth as she giggles.
“Yeah, okay. Massive understatement there.”
“Maybe . . .” she says coyly, tilting her head to the side and looking fucking cute doing it.
“Then I had a situation and I decided that at thirty-four years of age, it was high time I stopped trying to stretch out my irresponsible twenties.”
When I answer it’s like her entire body relaxes. Her shoulders drop and she looks down to our joined hands, a blush creeping up her cheeks.
“Amz, I don’t have a problem with you asking. Hell, I’m glad you asked. It’s not exactly a great ice breaker now, is it?” She giggles and turns her hand over so we’re palm to palm.
“No. But I want there to be nothing between us. I mean, you have already seen my lady bits so . . .”
“So you wanna see if I’m telling the truth about the nine inches?” I tease, moving my hand to my belt and going to stand up.
Her eyes grow wide and she spits out a laugh. “No! I meant it just seems like something we should probably get out of the way. I figured it was because of the . . . thing . . .”
I try hard to hold back my grin but when she’s being cute as hell, it’s near impossible not to smile.
“The thing? You mean cla-myd-ee-a aka the situation,” I say with a grin. “It definitely wasn’t fun at the time and it’s not something I’m proud of but it gave me the kick up the ass I needed to sort myself out.”
Her lips curl up and she tilts her head to the side. “You sure it wasn’t the drink being thrown at you by the lovely lady in my bar?”
I throw my head back and bark out a laugh. “It could be. That definitely made an already bad day worse. Michelle is a special kind of human being.”
“It was entertaining at the time, for me anyway.”
“Funnily enough, that’s not what I remember about that night,” I reply, loving how relaxed she is and how she doesn’t hold back with me.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t judge me, you didn’t give me shit—well, no more than a smart-ass bartender would anyway.” She tilts her head, shrugging her shoulders apologetically. “You were just there for me.”
A comfortable silence falls between us, my eyes dropping to her lips as she takes another sip of champagne.
“So was there a goal in deciding to not have sex?”
And that right there is one of the things that drew me to Amy. She doesn’t shy away from anything with me anymore. A stark comparison to how she was with me before Brody’s birth, before she fell asleep in my arms, and before Cade reaffirmed what I knew already, that I had anything but platonic feelings for her.
“Yeah, to give myself time and clarity to find exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
She slants her head, her eyes studying me. “And what was that?”
“You.”
Pulling up to the curb outside her building, I turn the car off and reach for the door handle, stopping when Amy places her hand on my arm.
“Thank you.”
“Spending time with you tonight was thanks enough, sweetness.”
Her eyes go soft in the second it takes me to say my pet name for her.
“I like you calling me that.”
“I know,” I reply with a grin. “But that’s not what you’re thanking me for, is it?”
“No,” she says, biting her lip. She hesitates briefly but fuck it feels good when she reaches over the center console and places her hand over mine. “Thank you for tonight. For the dress, for the pampering, for everything.”
I want to kiss her again. I need to kiss her again.
My eyes drop to her lips—which doesn’t exactly help matters—and I imagine exactly how she’d taste and how much I want to hear her moan into my mouth.
Shit. Inappropriate boner in a semi-public place. Think of bad things. Totally non-sexy things. Definitely not her dusty pink lipstick and how I wouldn’t give a fuck if I ended up wearing it all over my face if it meant I got to kiss the hell out of her right now.
Cold showers. Icy cold showers. I contemplate how cold Lake Michigan would be right now and whether jumping in fully clothed would do anything for my current predicament.
“Thomas?” she asks and meeting her eyes I see everything I want in that one look.
Swallowing hard, I turn my hand over to lace my fingers with hers. “I want to spoil you.”
“But you don’t—” I gently squeeze her fingers, cutting her off.
“I want you to know just how much I want to give this a shot. You’ve known part of me for a few years now, you’ve known more of me the past six weeks and I want to show you all of me from now on.”
Her eyes move over my face, likes she’s committing me—or this moment—to memory. She moves closer and lifts her hands to my face, pulling my mouth down to hers, taking control of the kiss and putting all thoughts of anything un-boner related out of my mind.
All I can think of is her. All I want to think about is her.
“One last thing,” she says, giving me one last taste of her lips before leaning back in her seat, her perfect well-kissed mouth morphing into a satisfied smile.
“What’s that?” I ask gruffly.
“With everything you’ve done tonight, you’ve totally nailed this first date thing.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She leans forward and beckons me in close with a crooked finger. “I’m really looking forward to seeing what else you can nail.”
A week after our dinner date and I’m feeling out of sorts.
Not in a bad way, or a weird way, but a good way.
I’m missing Thomas. Unfortunately, he had to take a rain check on Takeout Thursday last night because of a business dinner he couldn’t get out of. Not that I’d ever expect him to change a dinner just for me, and it did feel nice him intimating that he tried to reschedule, but I’ve become used to our regular Thursday night in.
In what I’m sure is a fact-finding mission—read: interrogation—Mia, Abi, Zoe, and Dani are currently residing in my living room for Friday night drinks. The excuse I was given was that the guys had moved their poker night forward and they were simply relocating their normal get-together to my place, but I know it’s more than that.
“So . . . how’s Thomas?” Abi asks, a knowing grin playing at her lips.
I narrow my eyes at my friend, shaking my head in the process. “You must know considering Thomas is best friends with your husband.”
She feigns shock, putting a hand over her heart. “And you think Cade would tell me about it?”
“If he didn’t, then you probably tortured the information out of him,” Mia says.
“You know me well,” Abi replies. “But I want to hear Amy’s version of events first before giving my commentary.”
“There’s a commentary?” Dani asks, quirking a brow.
“More like an opinion piece, a perspective from an outside observer,” Abi replies.
Dani snickers. “You sound like me when you switch to intellectual speak.”
“Oh, like you don’t know, Little Grasshopper,” Abi says, using Zach’s pet name for Dani. “I sat back and watched you and Zach go at it for months.”
“You watched them? Like literally? Or are we talking metaphorically?” Zoe says, entering the conversation. “This conversation has definitely taken an unexpected turn.”
I try hard not to giggle but the moment Mia gives up the ghost and bursts out laughing, I lose the fight. Soon enough, we’re struggling to breathe, a situation that only gets worse when Dani snorts loudly sounding like a pig in heat. Or what I imagine a pig in heat might sound like.
“I don’t mean literally. Not that a little visual stimulation is a bad thing. Just not one of my best friends,” Abi continues once we all finally recover. She turns her attention to me, “But don’t you dare try and change the subject, Amz. Spill or else I won’t tell you what Thomas said.”
I tilt my head and smirk. “Ever think that maybe I know what Thomas thought of our date and that I don’t need you to tell me?”
“Nope,” she retorts back matter-of-factly. “Because you forget I know you. You forget that we all know you.”
“We do?” Zoe says around a mouthful of corn chips. Mia just glares at her oldest sister, her eyes wide with surprise.
“Are you sure we’re related?” she asks. Zoe just shrugs and again, we start giggling. This is what happens when they’re one glass of wine in with husbands to drive them home at the end of the night. Sober husbands who enjoy the after-effects of their wives enjoying one too many drinks.
“Considering you two look more like twins than anyone else I know, yeah, I think we’re all pretty sure you’re related,” Dani says.
“You do know that if you want to know about my date with Thomas, you kinda need to give me a chance to talk, right?”
“Oh, is that what has to happen to get you to spill? I thought I was going to ply you with alcohol,” Abi states.
“No need,” I say, lifting up my glass of cranberry juice in her direction before taking a sip. “You probably all already know that Thomas organized Mia to take me dress shopping.” I look over to my best friend and wink at her, having already called her last Sunday to both ream her out for tricking me—half-heartedly of course—and thank her profusely for the part she played in getting me ready for the date.
“Well, Thomas also arranged my dad to babysit and for an old client of his to reserve a private dining room at this amazing Spanish restaurant in Humboldt Park.”
“Jeez, that man went all out,” Zoe murmurs, eyes riveted on me.
“And . . .” Dani presses, leaning forward in her chair.
“And, we talked, we had amazing food, he even had flowers waiting for me when we arrived.”
“I think the boys need to take lessons,” Mia muses, looking around the group. “Maybe Thomas can run a masterclass, How to score brownie points and guarantee porn-style head 101.
“So . . . Did Thomas score brownie points?” Abi asks, a huge grin plastered on her face. I know she’s loving this. She told me last year before ‘STD-gate’ and ‘oops-I-got-knocked-up-gate’ that she thought Thomas and I would be perfect for each other. In her words, ‘then my best friend and Cade’s best friend would be bumping uglies too.’ Yes, my darling Abs has a special way with words. It’s one of the things I love about her.
“Okay, enough with the buildup. Just tell us if you kissed—” Dani says.
“Or more than kissed, the more details the better,” Mia adds.
My face heats up and I’m suddenly feeling uncharacteristically shy. I mean, these are my girls, the ones who helped me with cracked nipples and everything pregnancy related. I know I can tell them anything. And it’s not like I put out on the first date.
Not that it felt like a first date. More like the tenth.
“Exactly,” Abi says with a laugh.
“What?” I ask, looking up to find them all looking at me with amusement and I realize I just spoke all of my thoughts out loud.
“We did help you with everything baby and pregnancy related. They did anyway,” she swings her arm over toward Mia and Zoe, the only other mothers in the group. “But yes, you can tell us anything and you better spill or I’ll come over there and sit on you until you do.”
I stare at her and she matches me, except she adds a raised eyebrow for good measure.
“Oh, all right. No, I didn’t put out. Yes, we kissed. Twice. Maybe more than twice. The second and third could be counted as one . . . or maybe two . . . yes, definitely two.”
“You know you’re babbling, right?” says a now beaming Dani.
“Can I just say how much I love this? We needed some excitement since Abi and Cade are all ‘happily married’ now,” Mia adds with air quotes.
Abi gasps and narrows her eyes at Mia. “Take that back. We’re still interesting. I mean, Thomas walked in on us on the dining—”
“La la la,” Dani says, putting her fingers in her ears. “I really don’t need to know that.”
Abi snorts, pointing her finger at Dani. “Like you can talk. Remember the morning of the wedding when I walked in on you and Zach fu—”
Moving quicker than I ever thought possible, Dani dives sideways, covering Abi’s mouth with her hand. “Anyway . . . back to Amy . . .”
I can’t help but laugh because for all Dani’s protests, we all know there’s a secret dirty girl beneath the geek exterior. A conversation last year about anal confirmed that and then some.
“So you kissed, and talked, and ate, and kissed again—twice—so what’s next?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. He couldn’t come over last night for our weekly takeout and movie night—”
“There’s a regular takeout and movie night?” Zoe asks, tilting her head to study me. “And how long has that been going on?”
“A few weeks, maybe a month?”
“You’re right then. It wasn’t really a first date. Well, it was and it wasn’t. Therefore there’s nothing wrong with a bit of slap and tickle between courses.”
“The conversation didn’t exactly lend itself to anything between courses.”
“Oh?” she says. “Uncomfortable?”
“Not really, more serious. No, not serious, important maybe?”
“Maybe?” Abi asks. “How can something be not serious but important?”
“I asked him about not having sex for the past year.”
“Now this I need to hear,” Mia says. “I always wondered how a guy like Thomas can go from one hundred to zero in the blink of an eye. I mean, who hasn’t had an STD before?” Three sets of wide eyes snap in her direction.
“Say what now?” Zoe splutters. “You’ve had an STD? When? How? And again, when?”
Mia waves us all off. “It was nothing. Just a case of crabs between friends. Two treatments ten days apart and I was good to go again.”
The room goes deathly quiet. The only sound is the low hum of the television in the background and a buzz from Brody’s baby monitor.
“What? It’s nothing.”
“You’re right, it’s nothing now. Who did you get it from? How did you get it? And why are we only finding out about this now?” Zoe says, repeating her unanswered questions.
“Enough about Mia, I want to hear about Amy kissing Thomas,” Dani says, trying to steer the conversation back to me.
“You know we’re going to talk about this later,” Zoe says under her breath but Mia just rolls her eyes and moves her attention my way.
“I wanna know if there’s going to be more kissing . . .”
“And more than kissing . . .”
“Yes, definitely that,” Mia says. “Please tell us there’s going to be more than kissing?”
I bite my lip and take a deep breath, deciding that there’s no time like the present to ask them about the thing that’s really bothering me.
“I want there to be more than kissing. A lot more. But it’s been so long I wouldn’t even know how to let him know I want it or that I’m ready to go there,” I say quietly.
“Are you ready?” Zoe asks softly. “Because I remember being terrified the first time after Nate.”
I meet her eyes. “I’m scared. But I think I’m ready, or at least willing to try,” I reply with a small grin.
