Not the right time, dick.
I’ve been patient, I’ve tried to show I’m not here for anything other than being with Ella and helping Tiff, but all this proximity isn’t helping my sanity, or my boner.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
She was surprised. That’s why she looked at you like that. She’s not hot for you. She just didn’t expect you to be flaunting your skinny ass in her bathroom. She was just out on a date with another guy for crying out loud, but then you ruined it.
Just like you ruin everything.
Tiff returns a few minutes later with a stack of clothes in her hands and a hoodie draped over her shoulder.
“Here.” She sets them on the counter, careful not to look at me. “I got you a bunch of stuff so you could choose what to wear.”
“Thanks.” Our fingers brush as I reach for the clothes. It’s hardly anything, but my dick doesn’t know that.
Tiff doesn’t flinch away; she leaves her hand there. “Do you think Zach’s going to be happy about me borrowing his clothes?”
“You climbed into a bathtub fully clothed for Ella. I think he’ll let you off this one time. Besides, after last week with my dad, I think Zach is reluctantly softening on you.”
“Pfft. That would be a miracle after all the shit I pulled. I don’t deserve it to be that easy.”
She pulls her hand away from mine, and I don’t stop her because the statement’s true, even for her. I don’t deserve her.
“How was your date?” I ask after a few moments of silence.
Tiff’s gaze catches mine. Her lips part, and then shut before she says, “It was fine. Reese is a good guy.”
“He seems like it.”
He certainly wouldn’t have done something so monumentally stupid while looking after Ella, that’s for sure.
“Did you… have fun?” It’s a reluctant question because I really don’t want to hear about it, but Tiff’s not mine, so I have no right to be upset.
“I was distracted,” she admits, and then I feel like an asshole.
Of course she was fucking distracted. You freaked out over a damn fever and cut her night short. The one night she had to go out, and you fucking ruined it, you moron.
“Even before I saw your messages,” she admits.
When her gaze meets mine, I swear her eyes are a little glassy.
“What were you thinking about?”
I hold her gaze, waiting for her to either break my heart or make it whole.
“This,” she says simply, raising her hand, but then dropping it. “You. Ella. Us.”
My heart’s beating faster. My brain is whirring into overdrive.
Us.
Is there even an ‘us’ to worry about? I hope so.
“I think about it too,” I confess, unable to hold back since she put it out there. “All the time, in fact. Even when I told you to go out with Reese, even when I was trying to convince myselfyou deserved someone better than me… I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like if you, me, and Ella were a real family.”
“Jamie—”
I raise my hand. “I know it’s complicated, and I know I have no right to expect anything from you after everything that’s happened, but being with Ella tonight…it feels right.”