“I’m not ready to have your ginger babies. But I love you.” I said it in a whisper, as if it was less true if my voice wasn’t that loud.
He sighed.
“I wish I was with you right now.” I wanted to reach through the phone, grab him and pull him into my room. Why hasn’t science made this possible yet?
“I wish you were here.”
“I can come over.” Even as he said it we both knew it wasn’t possible. It would look too suspicious if we were both out, and I wasn’t willing to risk it.
“No, you can’t. Not right now, but you can later. After work.” It killed me to say that, but I had to.
“Why must you be the voice of reason, Miss Clarke?”
“Because I’m your boss. And you’re my sexcretary.”
“We’re going to have to talk about that. I think we need to have some more trade off nights. I have some more dirty uses for office supplies that I want to try out.”
Mmm, that sounded really, really nice. As long as staples weren’t involved. Ouch.
“We’ll talk later. I’m going to go shower because I’m pretty gross right now.” I sniffed my armpit and was actually glad that he wasn’t here to witness it.
“You’re never gross, Sunshine. Or at least you’re not gross to me. But I’ll see you later. As long as my brother doesn’t have a disaster between now and then.”
“I’ve got my fingers crossed,” I said and then wondered how we were supposed to end our phone conversations now.
“Am I allowed to end this conversation by saying that I love you and I’ll see you later?” he said.
“You’re asking my permission?”
“Not really. I was going to say it anyway.”
“Well, I’m not going to stop you. I love you, too.” I almost had a giggle fit after I said it and it made my toes curl under thinking about seeing him tonight.
I set the phone down and fell back against my pillows with a happy sigh. And then my door flew open and Sloane came barreling across the room and jumped on my bed with a scream.
“You totally love him!” She pulled me up on my feet and started jumping on my bed and I had no choice but to jump with her with.
“You love him!”
“I know!” We jumped until we were both out of breath and I was worried about the structural soundness of my bed.
“I’m sorry, I just felt that needed to be celebrated.” She held up her hand and I smacked it with mine.
“Now that you’re in love, you’re not going to turn into a disgusting sap that I can’t stand to be around, are you? Because then I will have to vagina punch you.”
“I don’t think I’m going to become any different than I already am. I mean, I was sort of in love with Royce. Or at least I thought I was.” I hadn’t been, even though I’d told him the words. This felt completely different. Love with Royce felt . . . obligatory? Love with Lucah was something I couldn’t control, and something I didn’t want to control. Loving him was letting go. Surrendering.
23
I didn’t want to make Sloane leave when Lucah came over, so she decided to make us dinner and then vacate so we could have some “ooey, gooey lovey sex”, according to her. But she wanted to officially spend time with my “lover” so she was going to force us to eat dinner with her. I knew there was no point in arguing, so I said it was fine and sent Lucah a text so he wouldn’t be thrown off when Sloane attacked him, as I knew she would.
He said he was okay with it, so he must really love me.
Sloane buzzed him up while I was getting ready, and beat me to the door.
“Hey, lover boy! Come on in. Any lover of Rory is a lover of me.” That probably didn’t sound the way she meant it, but she didn’t seem to care. Lucah just smiled and let her hug him.
“I am so sorry in advance for anything that she says. I am not responsible for her, as you well know.” I pinched Sloane and she yelped.
That was just payback for her kicking me all those times. I hoped she had marks.
“I think I can handle it. Hi,” he said, turning his attention to me and letting the sweetest smile pass over his lips. When he spoke I saw the metal flash of his tongue barbell. How I loved that thing and what he could do with it.
“Hi,” I said and he gathered me into his arms and pulled me off my feet.
“I wanted to get you something, but everything I found seemed silly, so I went with this,” he said, handing me a small box that he’d set on the counter.
“Oohh, what is it?” Sloane said, leaning over my shoulder. Yeah, that wasn’t annoying at all.
“Well, I don’t know yet because I need to open it.” I reached through the tissue and pulled out what I determined was a paperweight shaped exactly like my favorite red shoes. There was also a coffee cup that said WORLD’S GREATEST BOSS on it. Ha, I didn’t know he was a fan of The Office.
“And I am now realizing the present is silly anyway. There are also some sticky notes in shoe shape in there as well.” He was blushing and it made me laugh.
“It’s so sweet, Lucah. Thank you. I love it. This is a million times better than flowers.” Now I would always have a little piece of him on my desk and no one would know. That was the best part.
“I never knew office supplies could be so adorable, but this is really cute, Ginger. Also, nice brown nosing. Well done.” She really had to stop calling him ginger. I gave Lucah a kiss right in front of Sloane and she made cheering noises and then a pot started boiling over on the stove and she had to go tend to it as I led Lucah to the couch and sat down with him.
“So you like it? You’re not just sparing my feelings. I swear, I can take it.” He pulled me into his lap and I stroked his hair. I loved this hair and the man it belonged to.
“I love it. Really. If it sucked, don’t you think I would tell you?”
“Yeah, you would.”
“She would,” Sloane called from the kitchen. I took the paperweight out and set it on the table and stared at it.
“I love you.” Now that I’d started saying it, I didn’t want to stop. Those three little words were like little bits happiness that seemed to want to spew out of me at random times. It was like I was a love spaz.
“I love you, Sunshine.”
“Okay, enough, we get it. Get a room before I throw up in your dinner,” Sloane said.
“You wouldn’t dare,” I yelled at her and she make puking noises until I got up and threatened to beat her to death with a wooden spoon. Lucah just watched us like we were some sort of comedy show and then started clapping.