by Elise Faber
Long-term relationships? Hell, no.
Friendships? Few and far between. She considered herself closest to Stephanie, or Fanny as she preferred to be called, who was the Gold’s skating coach, but that was a new friendship, still fragile and building, and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to open up enough to find the closeness a piece of her deep inside craved. Aside from Fanny, she’d even resisted being folded into the friend group of the Gold woman, until Mandy had physically dragged her to one of their girls’ nights out.
She’d had a nice time, and the women were all awesome.
But it was already hard for her to get a word in edgewise in a normal conversation, let alone with a group of beautiful, successful, smart, and funny women who weren’t shy.
Dani did better one-on-one, and she did even better when that one-on-one was with a person or people she knew—like her parents or her sisters.
It was easier to get a word in when she remembered that Toni had once puked all over the carpet because she’d eaten too many bowls of Cocoa Krispies, or that Loni (yes, her parents had a thing with names ending in I) had once nearly burned down the house because she wanted to teach her hamster to jump through a tiny flaming ring.
Also, let it be noted that no hamsters were harmed in the training of said trick.
The curtains in their living room, on the other hand, had been permanently scorched, and the paint—freshly done by their mom—hadn’t fared much better.
She could easily talk when she remembered that her mom had once broken her big toe because she’d gotten so mad at the washing machine that she’d kicked the clear plastic circle on the front—not once, but three times. And she could tease her dad about his inability to start campfires, even when provided with accelerant, a lighter, and dry wood.
Because she had years of memories, the comfort of all that time, and the fact that they’d stuck by her when things went to absolute shit.
It was just the rest of the world she couldn’t trust.
Maybe that made her pathetic, but she’d been burned deeply enough to not be willing to put her happiness and mental well-being on the line.
Better to live in the small, happy world she’d created.
But with Ethan—who had walked past her and into her tiny kitchen and was currently stacking the bags on the counter—she was tempted to make that world a little bigger. She wasn’t . . . well, she wasn’t exactly comfortable with him. Definitely not comfortable. Instead, she was—
What?
Uncomfortable? Yeah, sure.
But also intrigued by the gentle, quiet, tamed grizzly bear way he’d managed to draw her into conversation, entranced by his smile, the kindness in his eyes, utterly, hopelessly captivated by the pushy—and yet somehow still charming—way he’d hijacked her afternoon, coaxed her into shopping with him.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d relaxed enough with a person she hardly knew, let alone a man she didn’t know well, to actually laugh with him.
But she’d laughed with him.
A lot.
While walking up and down the aisles of a grocery store.
And . . . she had liked it, liked laughing with Ethan, liked spending time with him, liked him, plain and simple.
Did she like him enough to want to expand her little bubble of safety?
Maybe . . .
Her heart twisted, convulsing rapidly, sweat sheening the back of her neck as she considered, as she wondered, as she wanted. But ultimately, her old habits were too ingrained.
No. She couldn’t risk it.
Even if he was handsome and charming, pushy and as cuddly as a teddy bear, she couldn’t just put everything she’d worked for on the line for one man, and most especially for a man she worked with.
That was . . . stupid.
And no, that wasn’t disappointment coiling through her at her decision, sinking into her bones, making her hate that safety net she’d erected. It was sensible relief that she’d chosen to keep that barrier in place. It was. Really, it was. Sighing, she finally unstuck enough to move forward through the wide entrance to enter the kitchen, opening her mouth to tell Ethan that she’d drive him and his copious amounts of vegetables and plant-based proteins back to his house when she got out of her head enough to process what he was doing.
What. He. Was. Doing.
Her fridge was open, and he was stashing the groceries neatly inside. The junk food—more than normal, since she’d both panic-bought during the first half of their shopping extravaganza and then had thrown way more than she’d needed into her cart when he’d begun teasing her about killing herself with all that refined sugar.
Spite carbs, that was what she’d blown her grocery budget on.
But, she thought, eyeing the stash of cupcakes and chips and pretzels and cookies, the spite carbs were totally going to be worth it.
He had put away all those carbs—okay, well, he’d efficiently lined up all the boxes, bags, and trays of junk food—on her kitchen island, a veritable smorgasbord of delicious sugar and artificial flavorings.
“Dani?” he asked, turning from the fridge, a bag of apples (See? She didn’t buy only spite carbs). “You okay?”
Her throat seized, a haze settling over her—a mix of terror, hope, being touched by the simple act, and then more fear, knowing this would only end one way, and desire. And still, all she wanted in that moment was to not care that she already knew how it would end.
She wanted to find the courage to see it out anyway.
All because a man put her groceries away.
She was fucked. Completely and utterly fucked. Because that bubble had expanded without her permission, had shot forward to encompass this man and . . . now circling back to the fact that. She. Was. Fucked.
So, no, she wasn’t okay.
How could she possibly be okay?
She spun, hustled from the kitchen, moving—okay, running straight down the hall and out onto the tiny little patio that was beyond the back door. Her chest heaving, she leaned back against the cool wall and sank down into a crouch, gripping her hair.
She couldn’t do this.
It was fucking reckless.
Playing Russian roulette with her heart, just offering it up for him to pull the trigger over and over again until the bullet would inevitably fly through the air and tear through the organ.
Like it had before.
Fingers on her wrists, gently but inexorably tugging them away from where they held her hair.
Ethan didn’t say anything, but Dani’s eyes were open, staring first at the ground, then at the toes of his boots peeking into her periphery. He didn’t say anything, just waited. Probably for her to give him some explanation for why the sight of him putting away groceries had caused her to turn and run.
Disgust slid through her.
Hating that she was like this.
So freaking bad at life, at people, at . . . normal fucking human reactions.
“I’m not good at people.”
The fingers on her wrists began moving, tracing slow, light circles on her skin. It shouldn’t be a sensitive spot, not when that area spent the majority of its time resting against a keyboard, but the gentle touches set her nerves firing, made goose bumps prickle and rise, the hairs on her nape lift.
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” It was a low, husky question, one said so carefully that it slid under her defenses, threaded its way right through the gaps in the mesh of her safety net.
She shook her head, tugged her wrists free of his hold.
Her skin tingled, even after his fingers slid off, a phantom imprint of his touch lingering long after he’d sat back onto his haunches and waited.
The silence stretched—a taut, uncomfortable thing—reminding her of trying to wrestle herself into a too-tight swimsuit in a dressing room, squirming and jumping, tugging and wiggling it up, until it finally engulfed her from shoulders to hips, squeezing tight on her lungs, her stomach. Nausea coursed through her, burne
d the back of her throat.
“For the record, I think you’re doing just fine with people,” he said.
Dani froze, then her gaze flew up to his. Laughter bubbled up inside her, escaping out through her nose in a semi-painful snort. She sank down further, her butt hitting the concrete of the patio, her head resting back against the house. “You’re delusional if you could possibly think that I’m good with people.”
“Just because you don’t interact in the same way as others doesn’t mean you’re not good.”
It took her a minute to puzzle that out.
Then her brows drew together, her head shook. “You really are delusional.”
One half of his mouth quirked up, but his tone was easygoing as he sank down opposite her, matching her position on the concrete. Its coolness was seeping through the fabric of her dress, making her shiver, or maybe that was just because he rested his hand on her ankle.
“Okay?” he whispered.
Throat going dry, she thought about the contact, knew that she should say she wasn’t okay with it, just out of principle. But . . . the truth was that his large, warm hand resting on the bare skin of her ankle felt nice.
More tendrils slipping in through the gaps in her net, winding their way around her insides, filling her with warm, fluffy cotton candy straight out of the machine. Sticky fingers, the puffed sugar melting rapidly on her tongue, its sweetness bleeding over her taste buds, sinking down into her stomach, and all of those dopamine receptors in her brain blazing happily to life.
“Dani?”
Still wrapped in that warm, fluffy dopamine feeling, she found herself nodding.
The other half of his mouth curved, joining the first. Then he stretched out, leaving his hand where it was, even as his legs bracketed hers.
Bare skin brushing hers, the rough velvet of hair-covered male legs making her shiver in the absolute best way.
“Cold?” he asked, eyes soft and curious.
Since she wasn’t about to admit that she was ridiculously attracted to those legs, to the dark hair covering skin that was tanner than she’d expect for a man who spent the vast majority of his time indoors, she just simply said, “No.” Then hurried to ask, “Do you spend a lot of time outdoors?”
His brows lifted, perfectly framing gray eyes that were such an interesting mix of the shade—steel-colored with faint streaks of blue, a charcoal outline around his pupil. He didn’t comment on her staring, on her random question, just nodded and smiled again. “Yes, after freezing my ass off in an ice rink for most of the year, I really like soaking up the California sunshine.” A beat. “Do you?”
Her teeth found her bottom lip, nibbling, a stupid fucking nervous habit that she hated, one she immediately pulled back on, releasing it as she shook her head. “You saw the pile of books I picked up from the library, what do you think?”
“I think,” he said, his fingers flexing slightly on her ankle, sending heat curling through her, though he didn’t move any closer, “that you are the type of woman who can do whatever you want, whether that’s kicking ass behind the computer, hiking to the top of Mt. Shasta, sailing around the Bay, or just spending the night in the bath with a book and bottle of wine.” He smiled. “And that slice of cold pizza.”
She laughed, but it sounded off because shock had sliced its way through her at the words, at what this man thought she could do, what she might like to do. Was there ever a person, even her awesome family, who’d told her she could do everything? No. She was used to people putting her in a box, to hearing, “you’re a nerd because you like to build computers and game the night away, so there’s no way you’d want to scale a mountain or sail around a body of water.” Maybe the bath, wine, and reading would fit into their preconceived notions, but the rest of it?
No.
Not so much.
And that wasn’t even touching on the numerous microaggressions—and oftentimes the aggressions that weren’t micro-sized—the real-life discrimination and hate that came from being a woman of color in this world.
Even if she put that aside and focused on her nerdy qualities, on the things she’d been bullied for, Dani had always figured the rest of the world saw her as a woman they expected to have a trio of cats named Austen, Brontë, and Dickenson, and to have her Harry Potter house tattooed somewhere on her body. (Also, yes, she was a Hufflepuff and had a tiny badger inked on the arch of her foot, but her cat in high school had been named Nora, after the queen of romance, not the others. Neither of which were important to the topic at hand, except to say that she’d lived so long considering what the world thought of her, what box they tucked her neatly into, that it was both odd and refreshing to have a man seemingly allowing her the space to define herself).
It won’t last.
Her inner voice was a major fucking buzz kill, even as she acknowledged that it was probably right.
There was a reason for her safety net.
A reason she’d decided to get really good at keeping her safety net intact.
Even aside from the bullying that came from being a girl interested in tech, and a Black girl at that, she’d been burned enough times by friends and love interests after high school to know that her inner buzz kill spoke the truth.
His interest wouldn’t last. He would put expectations on her. He would try to make her fit into those, to act a certain way, would twist and change and . . . hurt her.
That was why this was so dangerous.
Why her longing, that bubble expanding, that safety net wanting to unravel . . . why all of them were so terrifying. Because she wanted to undo everything for Ethan. But what did he want in return?
The man hadn’t paid her any notice for two years, and now, after a handful of conversations, a couple of touches, and a few hours together, she was ready to melt for him, to let him in.
If he really wanted her, why had it taken him so long to take notice of her?
Except . . . she wasn’t exactly an open book, was she?
Keeping people well enough away from her was kind of Dani’s superpower. Right up there with making things really freaking awkward.
Case in point? Now.
“I have a badger tattooed on my foot,” she blurted.
His gaze dropped down, fingers sliding along her ankle. “Where—ah”—his finger swiped along the arch of her left foot—“I see it,” he murmured. “He’s cute.” His hand stayed on her foot, brushing lightly over the inked animal. “So, you’re a Hufflepuff?”
Swoon.
Fuck, this man was treacherous for her heart.
“What are you?” she asked.
His smile twined around her insides, squeezed tight. “You don’t want to guess?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t have to guess,” she said. “Without a doubt, you’re a Gryffindor.”
That grin widened. “Nope.”
Her brows rose, shock weaving through her for a second time. “You’re not a Gryffindor.”
A solemn shake of his head. “Nope.”
Except . . . there was something on his face that prickled her instincts. “Oh my God,” she said, sitting up. “You’re messing with me.” She tucked her knees under her, cupping his cheeks in her palms. “You’re totally a Gryffindor.”
His hands covered hers. “Yeah. I’m a regular lion.”
“A grizzly bear,” she murmured.
“What?”
“You’re like a giant, cuddly bear, who—” His thumb traced lightly over her bottom lip when she stopped, breath sliding out.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his mouth coming close.
God, he was going to kiss her, and she wanted it so badly, and—
What if he’s different?
He’s not, she countered. He can’t be.
She sat back and stood, his hands slipping from her face. “I should drive you home.”
She wasn’t going to look at him. She couldn’t. Because she couldn’t allow more seepage into her net, couldn’t allo
w any additional melting or bubble-expanding. But for all her best intentions, her eyes were drawn back to his.
Protest in the gray depths had her steeling her spine.
He stood, took a step toward her. “I figured I’d call a Lyft,” he said, near enough that she could feel the heat of his body. But he didn’t touch her again, and she spent a moment processing the disappointment swelling in her like a balloon attached to a helium tank that wasn’t shutting off.
Growing larger and larger.
At her for not being brave and opening herself up to new experiences. At him for making her want those new, dangerous life events.
Swelling, the latex growing dangerously thin.
He brushed a finger across her bottom lip, gray eyes searching hers. “Yeah, I’ll call a Lyft.”
Then he was gone.
And she found herself sinking back down onto the patio, listening for the front door to close behind him.
When it did, she tried to convince herself that the balloon inside her didn’t pop in time to that soft click.
But all that convincing didn’t make one bit of difference; regret flooded through her, sinking heavy through her limbs as the sun descended and she finally managed to push herself up from the patio, heading into the house and seeing . . . the pile of her books stacked neatly on her counter.
Junk food.
Books.
And . . . a bottle sitting on top of a note.
Thought of you when I saw this.
Hope you get to enjoy a bath tonight.
-E
Bubble bath.
She popped the top, inhaled.
Strawberries.
The same scent as the lotion she slathered on every morning because she absolutely loved the way it smelled.
And the same scent Ethan had noticed enough to buy the corresponding bubble bath.
Dani’s eyes slid closed.
She wasn’t disappointed. She wasn’t. She wasn’t.
Anyway, even if she was, she understood herself well enough to know she’d get over it.
Chapter Eight
Ethan
The hit came out of nowhere, smashing him into the boards hard enough that all of the air squeezed out of his lungs, his shoulder colliding hard with the glass.
