Page 34 of Bailey Bangs Her Brother's Best Friend
By the time he pulls away, he’s pretty much the only thing holding me up.
He’s grinning at me, glasses slightly askew, looking stupidly pleased with himself.“Fucking missed you, temptress.”
“Yeah,” I manage, my brain still offline.“I got that.”I pull back and fix my hair, mussed from his fingers running through it.“Where’s all your stuff?”I ask.He’s just got a backpack.
Silas shrugs.“Don’t need much, do I?Sexfest, remember?I plan to be naked most of the next forty-eight hours.”
“The Statue of Liberty will be scandalized.”
I turn toward the exit and Silas takes my hand, threading his warm fingers through mine like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
It feels weird.Not bad-weird.Just...unfamiliar.
When was the last time I held hands with a guy?High school?College?That guy I dated for three months two years ago who turned out to be married?
Oh boy, that’s depressing.
Silas’s thumb strokes across my knuckles—absent, casual, like he’s not even thinking about it.Like we do this all the time.
Like we’re dating.
We’re not dating.This is just sex.Getting it out of our systems, remember?
So why does my chest feel tight?
“I’m not going,” Silas declares.“If it’s okay with you I’ll just chill in your apartment.You won’t even know I’m there.I looked and it’s really, like, a half-day thing and I don’t want to take that much time out.”
I shrug.“Sure.”
We walk the block and a half to the subway under scaffolding and surrounded by the honks of traffic.Silas’s eyes are wide, taking it all in.
“Maybe I should have brought a suitcase to go shopping,” he says as we pass by three shoe stores on the same block.
I rack my brain trying to think of the nearest shoe store to Here.It’s at least an hour.“When was the last time you were in the city?”I ask as we head down into the Herald Square station.
“I think a bunch of us came down when we were seniors.”
“Really?That long?”
He shrugs.“I’m not really a city guy.”There’s a beat of silence.“Or...I haven’t been.I could maybe be?People change.”
He’s trying to backtrack.For me?That’s cute.
“I don’t operate under any delusions that you’d move here,” I quickly reassure him.
“What about you?Are you a city girl, never leaving the Big Apple?”he teases.
I hesitate.“I actually thought about moving a few years ago.When my company recommitted to its work-from-home policy.A lot of my colleagues did move, especially the ones that travel a lot.If you’re out of the office more than you’d be in it, it doesn’t make sense to stay, and since most of my colleagues have kids...unless you really love the city, it doesn’t make sense to stay.”
Our train comes and we board.Silas follows my lead and stands at one of the poles.
“Would you have moved back to Here?”
I can’t help it.My head jerks back in surprise.“No, I would move to the suburbs or something.Somewhere I could still make it in but not so often.”
The train jerks when it leaves the station and Silas loses his balance.He catches himself before he falls onto me and I put a hand on his stomach to steady him.He grins at me and wraps his free arm around my waist, leaning down to kiss me.
When he pulls away, we share this smile that feels different.Like we’re in cahoots together and in our own little bubble.He squeezes me and I lean against him.The next station we pull into he does a better job of balancing himself.
