Page 129 of First-Time Caller
I push off the door and busy myself with organizing a stack of discarded napkins so I don’t do something stupid like launch myself at him. Am I allowed to do that? Is that part of the fun?
He clears his throat and sets the tin on the counter behind him without looking. “No one is stealing my coffee.”
“Did it personally offend you?”
“Not yet.” He watches me in amusement as I patiently fold another napkin from Dunkin’ Donuts into my stack. “What are you doing over there?”
“Here?” I ask.
He nods.
“Oh. I’m organizing.”
He takes a step closer and hums, feigning interest in my asinine task. “I’m always saying how we need better-organized paper products in the break room.”
I nod, rolling my lips against my grin. He’s close enough to drag his knuckles over my forearm, and my body breaks into goose bumps beneath my sweater. “A clean break room is a”—I suck in a breath when he leans forward, his nose against my neck—”a prosperous one,” I finish awkwardly.
“Lucie,” Aiden rumbles, his smile tucked between my shoulder and neck. He punctuates my name with a kiss.
I tilt my head back to give him more room.
“Let go of the napkins.”
“Okay,” I say airily, dropping them immediately. They flutter to the ground like recycled-paper snowflakes.
“Good,” he whispers right below my ear, and I fist one hand in the front of his sweatshirt. I was hoping we could talk before our shift, but this is good too. Whatever this is. “Now I’d like to kiss you before I have to sit in a booth with you for three hours thinking about all the noises you made at my house the other night. Is that all right?”
I nod dumbly. “Yes. That is, uh, acceptable.”
I can feel his laugh catch in his chest. The way his ribs expand under the force of it. “Great. Come here.”
Except he doesn’t let me go anywhere. He cups the back of my head in his big palm and tugs my mouth to his. His kiss is surprisingly sweet. He sucks lightly at my bottom lip and then nips at it with his teeth, teasing me with his tongue before he pulls away. He looks over my shoulder at the open doorway, then slides his eyes back to mine. Something in his expression flickers and he drops his hand from the back of my head.
I catch his fingers with mine before he can pull too far away, though. I told Maya I want to make my own magic, and I think it starts like this. Being brave in the break room, telling Aiden what I’m thinking.
“I missed you,” I tell him quietly, my cheeks flaming beneath the confession. He did all sorts of absurd things to my body the other night, butthisis what I’m blushing over. I’m a ridiculous human being. “That’s probably not the right thing to say, but I—I missed you.”
Aiden’s quiet, his expression unreadable. My heart fumbles in my chest and I try not to let regret swallow me whole. Too much. Too soon. I still don’t know the rules to this game and—
His thumb touches lightly at my chin, tipping my face to his. His eyes are soft and his smile is devastating and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him look more beautiful. I press my hand to the middle of his chest, right where his empty key ring rests. Some luck for me, this time.
“If that’s not the right thing to say, then I don’t want the right thing,” he tells me. “I missed you too.” He shifts on his feet and drops his hand. Another covert glance at the door behind me. “How do you—how do you want to play this?”
“Play this?”
He nods. “Yeah. I’m following your lead. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
I feel like I’m missing part of the equation. I twist one of the earrings I put in this morning. A little red heart Maya got me for my birthday. “Whatever I’m comfortable with?”
Aiden nods again, patient. “We probably should have talked about this sooner, but I was—I was distracted.”
I watch Aiden’s eyes darken, his pupils fat in his blue-gray eyes. It took me four tries to leave his house the other morning, and we definitely weren’t having a conversation when he lifted my hand and sucked some misplaced strawberry jam off my thumb.
I shudder out a sigh.
“Yeah, I guess we didn’t talk about it.” I sway and stare at him. I’d never had sex on a kitchen table before. That had been . . . new. Aiden licks his bottom lip like he’s remembering too and stares back. “Can’t we—I don’t know. Can’t we just play it normal? Be how we usually are with one another?”
I don’t want to go through the hoops of pretending, but I don’t want to explain it to anyone either. I like that it’s just for us right now. Our own little secret. I’ve never had something to myself before, and I’d like to be greedy with Aiden for a little bit before everyone and their auntie in Baltimore weighs in. We don’t have to talk about it on the air, right? It can be something that’s ours.
