What He Really Feels (He Feels Trilogy) (21 page)

I gently untangled myself from her and went to take care of business, glancing at the clock on my way out of the room. It was only 7:30, and I didn’t have anywhere to be that day. I just wanted to hold Lindsay in my arms for the entire day. I headed to the kitchen after the bathroom and gulped down a glass of water, and then I headed back to the bedroom. She was still sleeping, and I slipped into bed next to her, wrapping my arms around her so I was spooning her, and I fell back into a blissful sleep.

She woke up about two hours later. “Jesus,” she said, scrubbing her eyes as she looked up at the clock. “I never sleep this late.”

“Workouts like the one we had last night will do that to you.”

She grinned.

“You want to talk?” I asked, needing to know the details of what went down between her and Spencer.

She sighed.
“Yeah. But not here. This bed is our sanctuary. Okay? Only you and me in here.”

I smiled at her, loving her sentiment. “You are the most perfect woman who ever walked this planet.”

We got up and she went to the bathroom to wash up while I put on the coffee. We met back on the couch, and she settled into the same position that we had been in just the day before. God, that seemed like a lifetime ago.

She held up the earring.
Her earring.

“This is mine,” she said.

I gazed over at her, and then I nodded. “It was all I had left of you.”

“I thought I’d lost it forever,” she whispered. Her eyes were
glittering with unshed tears.

I wasn’t sure if she was still talking about the earring.

“It’s yours, now,” I murmured, and I wasn’t sure that I was still talking about the earring, either.

Her legs were draped over my lap, and I imagined our future together. I could see the two of us sitting on a couch in our own home together, just talking after a long day of work, her legs in my lap as I absently stroked them, feeling her soft skin. And just as I pictured that in my mind, I realized that I didn’t even know what she did for a living. I knew very little about her besides how strong my feelings had become.

“Talk to me about what happened before you came here last night,” I said, figuring that was probably the best place to start considering we hadn’t done much talking the night before.

She sighed. “Well you know the basics. When you texted me and told me to end it with him, I knew you were right. I couldn’t pretend with him because it would only end up hurting him more in the long run.”

“What did you say to him?”

“We were watching television. A commercial came on, and I turned to Spencer, and I just blurted, ‘I don’t think I can do this anymore.’ And he said, ‘Do what anymore?’ and I said, ‘Us.’ The look on his face… God, it was horrible, but I kept going. I told him that I had ended things the first time for a reason, and while things had been a little better in terms of me being a priority, I realized in our time apart that we would be better off as friends.”

“How did he react?”

“He said I was wrong, and he asked me what he could do to make things better. And I said that there wasn’t anything because for me, it was over. I told him that I was going to stay with a friend so that we could sort our feelings out apart from each other.”

“Stay here.” It was the perfect solution; I could spend unlimited time with her when we weren’t at work.

She smiled. “Thank you, Tiger. I appreciate the offer, really. But I have a friend who I’ll stay with.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll stay with me.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “Travis, we barely know each other.” Her voice was quiet, as if she was trying to let me down gently.

I shrugged. “I know enough to know that I don’t want to be apart from you.”

“From two nights of fantastic sex?”

“No. From two nights of fantastic sex and the conversations we’ve had, and these… I don’t know, these… feelings… I’ve developed for you. From the way you make me feel whenever you’re in the same room as me.” I grabbed her legs and yanked so she ended up on my lap. I laced my arms around her waist. “From the way you kiss me.” I kissed her lips gently, just once. “From the way your fingers grab my hair when you get really hot for me.” I kissed her again. “From the way you’re thoughtful and caring and sexy as hell.” My lips found hers, but this time neither of us let go.

The coffee pot beeped, signaling the freshly brewed pot. I reluctantly broke from Lindsay to get us each a cup. “How do you take it?” I asked from the kitchen as she lounged on the couch.

“Cream and sugar. Flavored cream if you’ve got it.”

“Hazelnut okay?”

“My favorite.”

“See, we’re learning stuff about each other already. We take our coffee the same way. Add it to the list of common interests.”

She giggled.

“Do you want anything to eat?” I asked, stirring the cream into the two cups.

“Not yet. My stomach needs coffee first.”

I grinned as I made my way into the family room and handed her a mug.
“Another mark for the common interest column.”

I sat back down and we resumed our couch position. The perfect part of it was that I got to touch her sexy legs while looking at her beautiful face. It was a win-win for me.

“I have a stupid game I want to play,” she said, shyness blooming in her cheeks.

“Oh?” I asked, sipping my coffee.

“It’s a game I learned in college for when you’re getting to know somebody.”

“What is it?”

“The ABCs of Getting to Know You. We trade back and forth with each letter, and we have to say something we want to know about the other person. Like if I started with A, I would say, ‘Age,’ and then we’d both have to say our ages.”

“Sounds interesting.
What’s the consequence if something comes up I don’t want to answer?”

She gave me a look. “In the interest of not holding back from each other, I’m hoping we won’t have to use our Plead the Fifth card.”

“So what’s that?”

“You can opt out of a question, but you have to do a dare of my choosing.”

“So you’re saying you’re going to answer every single one of my questions?”

“Sure. I don’t have anything to hide. Why, do you?”

I grinned. “Let’s play the game and we’ll see.”

She giggled again, and I fell a little more in love with her. “Okay. I’ll go first.
Age?”

“Twenty-six.
I’ll be twenty-seven in March,” I answered.

“Twenty-four.
I’ll be twenty-five in March.”

“So I ask the B?”

She nodded.

“Birthday?”
I asked, since it was the first thing that came to mind after “age.”

“March 12.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said.

“What?”

“March 12 is my birthday, too.”

“Shut up. You’re lying.”

I stood up and walked to my bedroom, returning with my wallet. I pulled out my license and handed it to her.

“Geez,” she said, gazing at the proof. “The weird coincidences continue.”

“Common interest column?” I asked, and she nodded, grinning at me.

“Career?” she asked.

“I’m an architect.”

“Sexy. What have you designed?”

“Buildings,” I deadpanned, and she laughed as she mock hit me in the shoulder. That stupid line worked every time. “What about you?”

“I’m an event planner.”

“I could see you doing that. What have you planned?”

“Events.”
She giggled, mimicking my answer.

I laughed with her.

“I’m actually a junior planner. I’m basically an assistant, but I’ve worked on weddings, anniversaries, birthday parties, office Christmas parties… you name it.”

“Do you like it?”

“Most of the time. Not when we have Bridezillas.”

“
Bridezilla?”

“A bride who is a total bitch.”

I chuckled. “Okay, more about careers later. Onto D. Dogs or cats?” I secretly hoped she would answer this one correctly.

“Dogs, obviously.”

I grinned. “Thank God. If you said ‘cats,’ I was going to have to seriously rethink things with you.”

“Cats are a deal breaker?”

“For any other woman, yes, they would be. But I suppose I could learn to live with it for you.”

Our back and forth banter had us both laughing as we got to know one another. “So I assume dogs for you, too, then?” she asked.

I nodded. “Definitely.”

“E for education?” she asked.

“I have a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Architecture from Arizona State University.”

“My Bachelor’s is in Business Marketing from SDSU, and I started taking classes toward my MBA last year, but I’m only taking one or two online classes per semester. Classes are kicking my ass with a full time job.”

“I went right after my Bachelor’s, so I wasn’t working yet.”

“That would’ve been the smarter thing to do. I went to work for a year and a half before I decided I wanted to go back to school.”

“Why an MBA?”

“I want to open my own business someday.”

“Ambitious. I like that.”

“Give me your best F,” she said with a smile.

“First time?”

She sighed. “Oh geez, this just got real.”

“I’d prefer if you just told me your first time was with me at my apartment in Arizona.”

“Okay. My first time was with you at your apartment in Arizona.”

“Liar.”

She giggled.
“Truth?” I nodded. “My first time was my freshman year in college. I was with this guy, Jordan, who I thought I loved but in the end didn’t, and he would ask me about fifteen times a day if I wanted to have sex, and finally he just wore me down and I gave in.”

“That doesn’t sound like a great experience.”

“It wasn’t. It was over in about thirty seconds and he left me hanging.”

“Douche bag.” I couldn’t imagine someone treating this stunning woman in front of me that way. I knew that I would always, always take care of her needs, sexual or otherwise.

“You don’t know the half of it. Tell me about your first.”

I thought about Jules for the first time since Lindsay had knocked on my door the night before. “My first time was with my high school girlfriend, Julianne. We lived next door to each other since Kindergarten. Our families were very close. Still are, actually. We have sisters the same age who are best
friends, my mom and her mom are best friends, and my dad and her dad golf together. I loved her for as long as I can remember. We dated in high school and slept together on our prom night.”

She rolled her eyes.
“Cliché.”

I grinned.
“Totally.”

“So do you still hold a candle for this Julianne chick?”

“The only candle I’m holding at the moment is yours.”

“Good answer. But you loved her from Kindergarten through high school? How did it end?”

“Isn’t that an H question?” I teased.

She narrowed her eyes at me.

“Okay, okay. But in your own words, ‘oh geez, this just got real.’”

She reached over and took my hand in hers, and I wondered what had signaled to her to do that. Did I wear my heartbreak for Jules on my face? I didn’t feel heartbroken when I was with Lindsay, but that didn’t mean the hurt wasn’t still there.

“We broke up just before we went to college. We called it mutual, but I didn’t want to end things. She did. She wanted to have the freedom in college to experience new things and not be tied down to someone she had grown up with.”

Her thumb rubbed tiny, soothing circles on the back of my hand. “How long had you been together?”

I rubbed the back of my neck with my other hand. “Like a year, year and a half maybe.”

“So was that the end?”

I shook my head. “No. We slept together a few times during college, but for her it was just as friends. My feelings for her never went away.”

“You really loved her.”

I nodded. “Yes. I did.”

“Do you still?”

I gazed at Lindsay, her eyes clouded with alarm as she waited for my answer.

Did I still love Jules?

That was the question of the month.

“Truth?”
I asked, mimicking her question from earlier.

She nodded.

“Lindsay,” I started, using her actual name instead of her nickname, “I thought that Julianne was the love of my life. I was still very much in love with her. And then few weeks ago, I finally decided to confess how I’d been feeling for years.”

“She didn’t know?”

“No, she didn’t. We had been nothing more than best friends for years. I had finally made this decision that I had to tell her how I really felt. She was single, although she had a mad crush on her boss, and I had been dating this girl, Brooke. I broke things off with Brooke to make my big confession to Jules. And at that exact moment, she started dating Nick, her boss, so I couldn’t tell her how I felt, not when she was in this brand new relationship. But then he broke up with her and Jules was a total mess and she called me and I went to comfort her. We got a little drunk and I thought it would be a good idea to tell her how I felt.”