He shrugs. “Just realizing, youarea bit of a cuddle bug.”
I set the pan down in the sink with aclunk. “Based on what?”
“On how you were snuggled up to me when I stayed over at your place.”
“You”—I point the scrubber at him—“were just as snuggled. You had yourarmwrapped around me Wednesday night.”
“You,” he says smugly, “weregluedto me Thursday morning.”
Fresh heat slams through my body. “Not when you woke up.”
His grin deepens. “Not when youthoughtI woke up.”
My jaw drops. “You menace!”
“That’s it!” He stabs a finger in the air. “That’s what we were talking about!”
Surprising myself, I have this urge topush. To demand. Why did he pretend to be asleep? Why did he let me lie there, glued to him (I was absolutely glued to him), staring at him like that?
Oh god, does he know I was staring at him? That thought wipes away any interest I had in pushing the conversation further.
“We were talking about,” he says, “being vengeful menaces.”
I turn the spigot on, rinsing the pan. “Vengeful? Us?”
Alex darts a smiling glance my way as he picks up another pan and starts to dry it. “What I was thinking about, then—”
“Before or after the towel spanks?”
He nudges me with his shoulder. I set the rinsed pan on thedrying rack and turn off the water. “Sorry. You towel-spank when people are saucy. I get glib when they’re sincere. It’s a bad habit. Can I have a dish towel?”
“To spank me?”
“To dry the dishes,” I say neatly.
“Fine,” he sighs, then tosses me a towel. “I was just thinking, for how much getting back at our exes was the reason we started spending time together, we haven’t spent much time talking or thinking about them. It’s not what I expected, but… this feels way better. And I don’t mean just the touching.”
Touching. It’s an innocuous word but not the way he says it. Goose bumps bloom across my skin. I try to hide the shiver that ripples through me by reaching for a pan, then starting to dry it.
“What were you expecting from our hangouts?” I ask. “Toxic vent sessions in which we’d vilify our exes and judge them for jumping into a new relationship before the ink had dried on our divorce decrees?”
“Hmm.” He tips his head. “Thatdoessound appealing.”
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s sort of what I’d expected, too. And I imagine a time will come for that. But for now…” I nudge his shoulder with mine. “I like this. It’s nice, to just push them, the sadness, all of it, out of our heads, and feel… almost happy?”
“Happy-ish,” he says.
I smile. “That,” I tell him. “Happy-ish.”
CHAPTER 16THEN
August 9, two summers ago
“Were you not just telling me the other week,” I say to Alex, “that youhatestreet biking?”
We’re walking down the sidewalk leading to my apartment, under the cool comfort of shade cast by the tree tunnel overhead. I have Argos on his extendable leash, ten feet ahead of me, with Mia half riding her balance bike, half clutching his leash. She wanted to hold his leash herself, but Argos gets too excited about birds to be trusted not to take off if one shows up and send Mia and her balance bike flying off with him.
“I hate street biking because of the cars,” Alex says, “which tend to drive not around cyclists butatthem.”