Page 61 of Man Candy (After We Fall 1)
“Had to find my pants,” he said, his hair messy and flopping in his face. He pushed it back. “The rest of my clothes are still down there, but I brought yours up. They’re on the couch.”
“Thanks.” I stood there for a second, arms crossed, not wanting him to leave but not certain asking him to stay was right, either.
“It’s late, I better go. See you tomorrow.” He came over to me and kissed my cheek, and a moment later, he was gone.
I turned off all the lights and got in bed, fighting disappointment and angry about it. What the hell was with me? Had I missed him that much? Had I really been about to ask him to stay?
Thank God he left, said a voice in my head. You invite him once, he’ll think he can do it all the time. You’ve got a nice thing going here. Don’t ruin it.
I turned onto my side and hugged my pillow.
The voice was right. We might be casually dating, but once the dates were over, he belonged in his bed, and I belonged in mine.
Even if it felt empty without him tonight.
Nineteen
JAIME
“This is cruel. How am I supposed to get dressed for tonight if I don’t know where we’re going?” I had the phone tucked between my ear and shoulder as I surveyed my closet.
“It’s not cruel. It’s called a surprise.”
“Are you tricking me? Is this some kind of ploy to get me to go see a sappy movie or something?”
We’d been dating for a month now, and so far I’d avoided having to sit through any insipid romantic comedies or sweeping dramatic epics where two people fall in love and then she dies. We stuck to dinner dates, outings like museums or shopping or a Red Wings game here and there, and we also stayed in a lot, making dinner together and watching TV. I’d learned to accept Quinn’s desire to cuddle on the couch, and he’d perfected the art of “moderate cuddling” so that I didn’t feel smothered to death.
Every time we went out, he snapped a pic of us and posted it with his goofy hashtags. Someone invariably commented, Does she believe in love yet???, and he’d reply, I’ll ask her.
The answer was still no, usually accompanied by an eye roll or a sigh, and he’d have to report back with Not yet and a bunch of silly sad emojis. Sometimes he’d add something like, Still trying!
If he was still trying, he was being pretty underhanded about it, since other than the couch cuddling, he never tried to hold my hand or kiss me in public or talk about “where this was going.” Occasionally, he tortured me with the horrible nicknames, but mostly he respected my rules.
Still, today was Valentine’s Day, and I didn’t entirely trust him not to get mushy.
“No, sunshine, it’s not a ploy,” he insisted. “Just wear whatever. You look great in everything and nothing.”
“If I wear nothing, can we stay in tonight?” Because those were my favorite nights with Quinn. Sometimes we’d play games—we had this one where I was the landlady and I knocked on his door demanding the rent and he offered to be my slave to pay it off because he was a sexy starving artist living on a dream. Once he even painted my body with chocolate syrup and licked it off. (We went up to my place for that. I don’t think I need to tell you that Quinn doesn’t buy things like chocolate syrup.)
We had another game where he was the doctor making a house call and I was the proper Victorian lady besieged by hysteria (also known as sexual frustration) which could only be relieved by a paroxysm (also known as an orgasm) the doctor brought on with either his hand or my vibrator. (At first Quinn didn’t believe me when I told him that this actually happened in history, and that vibrators were, in fact, invented by doctors whose hands were cramping up from flicking sexually frustrated Victorian beans all day long, but I swear to God it’s true. Just another one of those fun facts stored up in my brain.)
“No.” Quinn’s voice was firm. “We are going out. Get dressed. And hurry up because I have something to show you.”
“OK, fine. I’ll be down in half an hour, you big bully.”
He was laughing when I hung up.
I decided on a red pencil skirt with a bow at the top of the back slit, a black top, and just for fun, some leopard print heels. After pinning my hair into a loose knot off to one side, I put on my makeup, some earrings, and a little perfume. Before walking out the door, I grabbed my coat and the gift bag with Quinn’s present in it—a Tigers T-shirt and a voucher from me for two tickets to opening day at Comerica Park. It wasn’t like me to buy a guy a gift for Valentine’s Day, but in my defense, I’d already been planning on doing the opening day thing for him because I knew how excited he was about the upcoming season, and Valentine’s Day just happened to occur right around the time I had the idea.
Purely a coincidence.
Getting down the stairs in the heels and tight skirt was a bit of a challenge, especially holding my coat and the bag, but I managed to do it without popping stitches or turning an ankle. But when Quinn answered my knock, I went more than a little weak in the knees.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s kind of a shame it covers so much of your body, but you can wear the hell out of a suit.” It was charcoal gray and hugged his shoulders, tapered smoothly at his trim waist, and showed a hint of his white sleeves beyond the cuff. He wore a dark blue tie my fingers itched to undo, and his hair was slicked back off his face, which showed off his eyes even more. “Are you sure we have to leave the house?”
“Not at all. Now that I see you in that skirt and those heels, I’ve got all kinds of better ideas.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You’re stunning.” Burying his face in my neck, he inhaled and then bit my throat. “I could eat you up.”
Giggling, I squirmed away from him. “Don’t muss me, or I won’t go out with you tonight.”
