Page 216 of You've Got Hate Mail
I look around the room again.
People are still watching me. Us. Me.
I want to be brave.
I want to tell him I don’t care if they watch.
But I still do.
I’m better. I am.
But I don’t have to be perfect.
I don’thaveto be all the way over it.
I get to be scared and vulnerable and want to leave places that make me feel unsafe.
I don’t have tobuck up and face itlike my parents would’ve told me to do.
“Yes,” I whisper.
He nods.
Doesn’t say a thing about the dessert we were planning to order or getting a to-go box for the half-eaten potpie he wanted to finish for lunch tomorrow.
Just gathers me up in his arms and lifts me out of the seat.
“Send me the bill,” he says to Rachelle.
“Pfft. Entertainers get free food.”
He scowls at her.
She smiles back. “Don’t go too fast. I’m sending you home with dessert.”
“You don’t—” he starts gruffly, but she looks at me, with my head laid against his shoulder and him gripping me tightly, and then he sighs. “Thank you, Rachelle.”
“Like I said. Entertainers get free food.”
“I like her,” I murmur to Heath, who’s still holding me.
“Thought you might.”
“Was she before or after you?”
“Just after.”
I’m tired.
I’m so damn tired now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“If I hear you apologize one more time for something that’s not your fault, no orgasms for you tonight.”
“Thank you for—for slaying dragons for me.”
“Absolutely anytime, angel. Anytime.”
