The Man I Thought I Trusted - E. L. Todd Page 0,42
tell her he’s felt this way for a long time?”
“I hope no. Kinda creepy.”
“Creepy?” I asked.
“Could you imagine telling someone you’ve been obsessed with them for, like, a year? That you dumped your last partner because you couldn’t stop thinking about them?” She put a few fries into her mouth. “I think it’s a little much.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“He can tell her…but just wait a while.”
I put the food on my plate. “Have you talked to her about everything?”
She shook her head. “I do my best to stay out of things. Learned my lesson.”
“There was no lesson to learn because it wasn’t your fault.”
She shrugged. “Not everyone shares that opinion.”
My hand moved to her back, and I gently rubbed her before massaging the back of her neck. “But they will, in time.”
She lay beside me in the dark, surrounded by windows that showed the city glow outside. The sheets were pulled to her shoulder and covered her naked body, and her hair was all over the place from the way I’d fisted it. She released a loud sigh, as if it was an announcement. “I should probably go. I have to get up early tomorrow…”
“Why don’t you just bring a bag?” I lay beside her and stared at her.
“Because I’m lazy. I hate packing.”
“Then why don’t you bring some things to keep here? A couple outfits? Extra makeup?”
“So, you can have girlie shit in your closet and on your bathroom counter?” she asked incredulously.
“I don’t mind. It just reminds me that you’ll come back.”
Her lips relaxed slightly at my words. “You know I’ll always come back, even if I don’t have anything here.”
“I do.”
She sat up and looked at the clock on my nightstand.
“Why do you have to get up early?”
“Staff meeting.”
“Oh, I know how that goes.”
“I have to give details about everything I’m working on, just like everyone else in the office does. It’s kind of annoying because no one really cares what anyone else is doing because we’re so focused on our own articles, but I get why it saves my editor time.”
“You know, my place is closer to your office, so you’re actually closer when you stay here.”
She grinned at my attempt to keep her around. “Which makes it an even farther commute when I have to go back to my apartment first.”
“Which is why you need to keep stuff here. Besides, don’t you want to be out of the apartment when Denise and Charlie start sleeping together?”
She cringed. “Very true…and well played.”
I propped myself on my arm and moved my hand into her hair so I could kiss her, taste the lips I’d already tasted all night. “Come on, sweetheart. Ditch that place and come live with me.”
Her eyes shifted back and forth as she looked into my face. “It sounds like you’re asking me to move in with you.”
“If your answer is yes, I am. If it’s not…you’re reading too much into it.”
She continued to study me, her face unreadable. “You think this is going too fast?”
We’d just hit a roadblock, and the collision was painful. “Do you?”
“No… Isn’t that weird?”
My eyes immediately narrowed on her face because I couldn’t believe what she’d said. “It’s not weird at all.” It wasn’t weird because it felt right—for both of us. “I think we’ve gotten exactly what we deserve in each other. And that’s not weird.”
Her eyes filled with affection as she smiled.
“Could you imagine doing this every day? Every night?”
“I can. But I think after you talk to Charlie, he’ll convince you it’s a bad idea. He’ll tell you about the popcorn in the couch cushions, the time I used his phone as a flashlight and dropped it in the toilet, and how I vacuumed the entire apartment when the bag was full, so I ended up making the entire place even dirtier.”
“He might have mentioned a couple things.”
“Well, there you go.”
“But I also think he wants to get you out of that apartment as fast as possible.”
“That’s what he says, but…I don’t know.” Her smile faded, and she turned more serious. “We’ve been living together for a long time. I think he’d actually be pretty sad if I left. I’d be kind of sad too, you know.”
“Yeah, I understand,” I said gently.
“But I also understand that people move on, and that’s not a bad thing.”
Her living with me definitely wasn’t a bad thing.
“So, if my answer was yes…where would we live?”
“Here.”
“In a penthouse?” she asked, slightly incredulous.
“Is that a problem?”
“I don’t know…” She took a look