Page 20 of P.S. It’s Always Been You
“Yes, I love lounging on the subway as I read. But no, Hunter. I haven’t read any of your best sellers.” She takes a breath, then seems to dial down her frustration. “But if you feel it’s important I do so in order for us to work together, I will. Because I’d like to have a successful working relationship with you.” Her words are pointed, and a part of me hates that she keeps emphasizing the nature of what we are—colleagues—while I keep rewinding to what we were—lovers.
And I keep going there. “Nah. No need. There are more exciting books to read. Books like The Highwayman.” Gently I reach for her arm, stopping her in her tracks at the end of a quiet corridor. “I seem to recall one night when I discovered you caught up in that book—”
She brings her finger to her lips, imploring me. “Please. We’re in a library.”
“I don’t think that’s the reason you don’t want me reminding you of that time,” I say, my voice smoky as I lock eyes with her.
“What’s the reason, then?” Her tone is mixed with flames too.
“Because it’ll bring back memories.”
“I don’t recall a thing.” But the wobble in her voice, the flicker of heat in her blue irises tells me she remembers everything about that night at her apartment. I picked up her dog-eared romance novel and read aloud a passage to her as the hero undressed the heroine for the first time. Then I tossed the book aside and showed Presley how much better that felt when it was happening in real life.
“I bet you remember every detail as well as I do.”
She swallows, her lips parting as she casts her gaze to my hand on her arm. She says nothing. I take that as a cue to brush my finger along her bare flesh. Goosebumps rise in its wake. “Like that. Just like that.” I inch closer. “And then a whole lot more.”
A flush spreads across the exposed skin on her chest, a tell.
“I remember all the details of reading to you that night. Every. Single. One. Want me to remind you?” I ask.
“Please, don’t,” she whispers, her voice almost desperate, and I can’t tell if I’ve hurt her by mentioning it or turned her on.
Maybe both.
Or maybe I’m doing all of this wrong, miscalculating every move I make. “Sorry,” I say quickly as I let go of her arm. “I didn’t mean . . .”
But I don’t finish the sentence. Because I did mean it. I meant to turn her on. I want her to be affected by me, because I’m clearly still affected by her.
“It’s okay.” She waves her hand down the hall, like she’s pointing in the direction of our earlier conversation. “And listen, I didn’t mean to suggest you were so caught up in yourself that you stopped reading.”
I smile. “I still have my nose in books.”
She smiles in return, but then it disappears. “But Hunter?”
“Yes?”
Her expression is intensely serious. “I don’t want to spend this time together revisiting old memories. We both know the score. We have history. But that’s the past. I’m a historian; you’re an explorer. We both ought to know you learn from the past, but don’t live in it.”
“I don’t want to live in the past. I’m liking the present,” I say, and for a second, maybe more, the air between us hums, charged with electricity. With possibility.
Her eyes linger on me, and I could band an arm around her waist, haul her in for a kiss.
Because I definitely like the present, where she’s flesh and blood. The three-dimensional woman in front of me is so much better than the memory of her that haunted me those first few months after we split. Images of her flickered before my eyes every night when I huddled in my tent and every morning when I woke. She was there with me, and that expedition had a higher degree of difficulty than it should have, since I was climbing the world’s highest mountains while trying desperately to fall out of love with a girl.
But I succeeded somewhere around Mount McKinley in Alaska, vowing to forget her.
And I did. Successfully. I erased her from my head for nearly ten years.
“Let’s focus on the present, and our present involves work,” she says, redirecting the conversation once more. “We’re going to the house in a few days. We should prep.”
This time, I don’t fight it. I give her my best professional smile. “Fine. Take me to your books.”
She heads down the hallway and turns into a room full of shelves. The floorboards creak, the scent of old books wraps around us. Methodically, with the precision of a researcher who knows her job cold, she takes a few books off the shelves, and we head toward the tables. They’re full, but I spot a worn leather couch in the corner, and we sit.
