Page 102 of My Favorite Holidate
She shakes her head. “He never spent the night at my place. I never did at his either.”
I’m rarely surprised, but now that’s twice in a few seconds. “Never? Why not?”
“He said he slept better alone, and he needed to be fresh for the markets. It was fine,” she says, but she sounds stoic. Like maybe it wasn’t fine.
“Did you want him to? Spend the night?” I ask in a strangled voice. I’m the dragon now, seething with stupid envy over a past romance. And I know better. I shouldn’t ask about another man but this feels important for some reason. Now that I’ve gone down this path, I’m not stopping.
She twists the covers in her hands, her expression thoughtful as the moonlight streams across her lovely face. “The thing is—I wasn’t bothered as much as I should have been. I mean, a man should want to spend the night, right?” She turns toward me, tilting her head, her gaze curious.
My chest aches. A fire roars in me. “If you were mine, you’d be with me every night. If you were mine, I’d tell you how much I want you to stay over.” And fuck it. The sheet stealing is adorable after all because…of course it is. “If you were mine, I’d never care that you’re a bed hog.”
She swallows, parts her lips, then says, “I’d try not to be a bed hog for you.”
My heart clutches. So much for my efforts to erect some distance between us. All I want is to get closer to her now. To feel what it would be like if she were mine. I really should try to go back to sleep, so I motion for a pillow.
She hands one to me, then says, “What about you?”
“What about me?” I ask as I lie back on the pillow.
“Did you want your last girlfriend to spend the night? When was your last relationship? Was it Felicity?”
“The last serious one, yes,” I admit.
“Why didn’t it work out with her? Did she steal the sheets?”
I smile then lift a hand and stroke Fable’s hair, swiping it off her cheek. My fingers tingle as I touch her soft skin. I shouldn’t do this—indulge. And yet, I’m doing it, and she’s…inching a little closer. I answer her with, “We were together for a few years after Mac was born. But in the end, we were better as friends. As co-parents. We didn’t have that…spark. We got along almost too well.”
She nods a few times, then asks, “You didn’t fight, you mean?”
I picture my arguments with Fable in the last few weeks, the times she’s teased me, the moments she’s sparred with me, then our heated fight earlier—and the filthy, fantastic way it ended. I could fight her and fuck her every day if she were mine. “We didn’t,” I say.
“There hasn’t been anyone else?”
“Some dates. A few that turned into a little more. A couple months here, a couple months there.”
“But that was it?”
“Yes,” I say, wondering where she’s going.
“Do you not want that? Romance? Love? A partner?” She sounds hopeful. Looks it too.
Oh.
Well, it’s obvious now that that’s where she was headed, yet it’s a punch in the gut. Because I don’t want to lie to her. But I’m also starting to question everything I thought I knew about romance. I don’t have new answers, though, so I try to opt for the truth. “It’s not that I don’t want it. It’s that I don’t know if I can trust.”
Her hopeful smile falters. “Oh. Sure.” Her brow furrows. “Do you—” But quickly she shakes her head, like she doesn’t want to go there.
“Do I trust you?” I ask impulsively, finishing her thought.
She shrugs, then waves a hand. “It’s silly. Don’t answer it.”
I don’t know how to trust. I don’t know how to trust something born from a lie. And yet, here I am trusting her with the things I tell no one—like my feelings about love. “I trust that this agreement is working out well,” I say, as diplomatically as I can.
She purses her lips, then nods, like it’s hard to stay tough. “It would be. If I wasn’t such a bed hog.”
She’s trying to make light of the situation. I know she is. And I hate going back to bed on such a somber note. “And yet there’s no place I’d rather be right now,” I say, then run a finger through her hair one more time. I’m a selfish prick, indulging. “I’ll get another blanket from the hall closet, my little dragon.”
“Good idea,” she says, smiling again, and I head to the closet, grab a fleece, and return.