His eyes drop to my mouth. “I can’t help myself.”
His arm tightens around my waist. “Come home with me.”
“What?”
“Come home with me. Right now. Stay the night.”
“What?” I ask again.
“You heard me,” he growls.
“I can’t, Harmon. I have to bring Chrissy to school in the morning.”
“We’ll drop your car off at your house.”
“Cammy doesn’t drive.”
“I’ll send a car.”
“You’ll send—what?”
“Cassius. Stay with me tonight,” he repeats, bringing his lips a hair from mine. “Fuck the rules.”
I’m torn. So torn.
Between wanting him and needing this job. The lines are so blurry I can’t even make them out. I don’t know what this means and how to navigate this.
What he’s asking me… what does it mean?
Yes, he’s been breaking rules, and so have I, but there was still a small line there. A line that I knew I couldn’t cross. A wall that I kept up to keep my feelings in check, knowing that if I fell, it would never be reciprocated because he can’t crossthatline.
But now that he has? Now that he’s saying these things, that wall has shattered.
He’s giving me hope. A chance. For what? I don’t know. An actual relationship? Could that work with us? Everything else has worked, but what would a different dynamic look like?
Maybe we need to try this without the rules. Maybe we need natural, rough sex. A friends-with-benefits situation, like I did with Abe. Maybe this isn’t going into relationship territory, not in a domestic type of way. Maybe we need to do this without the rules, and that’s it. It could fix everything…
I haven’t thought of me and Harmon having a life together, that’s not where I’m at. But I have thought about him in the middle of the night, wishing he was around. I’ve woken up, wishing he was there next to me. He’s on my mind often. We had a great time in New York at the play and staying in the same hotel room together, despite sleeping in separate rooms. We can coexist together, we’ve proven that. The sex is great. We can hold a conversation. We work well together.
But I’ve stopped myself from allowing myself to think there could be more, not only because of the rules, I’ll admit.
But because of the money.
How would we ever move forward with a relationship with him paying me? It would never be natural, and the funny thing is, I doubt he’s even thinking about it. I doubt he’s missing the money he gives me or even recalls it because it doesn’t mean anything to him. But to me? That money is everything. It’s my lifeline.
“How did we get here?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he answers. “But I can’t keep caring. All I know is that I want you with me. You make me feel better, and I want you...”
I search his pleading eyes. “You’ll send a car?”
“Of course.”
“I need to call my sister.”
He nods and steps back. I take my phone from my back pocket and pull up Cammy’s contact to call her. I hold Harmon’s gaze as I bring the phone to my ear, and as it starts to ring, I give him my back.
“Hey,” she answers. “You okay?”