“You meant it,” I interrupt. “And I know what you were trying to say. I know. I get it from my friends all the time, but when they say it, it’s like . . . expected? It’s just, ‘Oh, Imogen’s off being Imogen again!’ and we all get to laugh about it. You know my friend had to send me money so I could pay you back for some fucking underwear?”
Nate laughs, then seems to catch himself, like it’s inappropriate.
“No, see, that’s what I mean. Laugh away. I couldn’t even afford underwear, Honeypot. I am stuck on lockdown in a total stranger’s apartment, you’re right, whose name I didn’t even remember, totally broke, and this feels pretty average for me. Like, that shouldn’t be happening, you know? I am chaotic.”
“You’re a goddamn hurricane,” Nate tells me.
But he says it softly, almost reverently, and with a gentle smile that makes me blush and look away. A sniffle catches me off guard, and I blink away the tears that have suddenly filled my eyes. A couple break loose but before I can wriggle my other hand free from my blanket-burrito situation, Nate reaches over.
His palm cups my cheek, warm and gentle, his thumb brushing away the tear there.
I haven’t made a secret of the fact that I think Nate’s attractive or that I’d like to sleep with him again, but this feels different. This isn’t getting tangled up in the bedsheets together, lips and hands everywhere. This feels fragile, and raw. I want to bury myself in his arms and kiss him and be held and have that be all it is.
I’m comfortable with guys. I’m comfortable with my body. I’m a tactile person and I hug all my friends. But the way Nate touches me now is so intimate without being romantic or sexual and it’s so tender that I draw away, trying to process it. I think about the other night, when he kissed my cheek.
Being comfortable with guys and with sex is one thing, but this kind of intimacy feels completely foreign to me.
And God, I want it so badly. It’s like not knowing how cold you are until you walk into a warm house, not realizing you were thirsty until there’s a glass of water in front of you. I’ve always thought I was okay not doing the whole serious relationship thing but now, fuck, I’m starved for it.
Nate misunderstands why I’ve pulled away, though, because he clears his throat and changes the subject quickly.
“If you’re broke,” he says, “I mean, it’s literally my job to manage projects in the finance world. I’m no stranger to a spreadsheet. I could, like . . . I mean, we’ve still got another day to go, right? Maybe we could take a look. See if you can get unbroke. Or, a little way there, at least. Work out budgets and payment plans to pay off your debts and stuff.”
I gawp at him, my eyes filling with tears all over again.
And I suddenly feel so stupid, because maybe it could’ve been this easy all along. Maybe I could’ve just asked my parents or my friends to help me figure something out, instead of asking them to bail me out. Maybe if I’d just held up my hands and said, “I fucked up” every so often, instead of only ever making jokes about it.
My therapist has a lot to answer for if Nate can manage to turn my life around in a mere week.
“You’d do that for me? Even after I forgot your name?”
Nate laughs. “It’ll cost you one Ramones T-shirt.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Honeypot, but you’ve got yourself a deal.”
And, to seal it, I lean over to kiss him.
He lifts a hand, though, pressing it to my shoulder, pushing me back gently, but firmly. His jaw clenches and he gulps, looking at me steadily. A smile ghosts across his lips.
“Immy . . . ”
I can handle rejection. I’m a big girl.
But fuck, I’m emotional, and I like him, and I can’t handle the rejection at all.
Too loudly, too brashly, I tell him, “If you’re not attracted to me anymore because I’m a screwup or because you feel like you know me too well after spending a week together, it’s okay. I get it. You can just tell me you’re not interested. I can handle it.”
Lies, lies, lies.
It’s not like he wouldn’t just come out and say it, either, because that’s the kind of guy he is. Upfront. No-nonsense. But for some reason I feel the need to go on the offensive. The best kind of defense, right?
“That’s not it.”
I scoff.
“It’s not,” he insists. “Imogen, I—I really like you. That’s the problem.”
Oh, great, just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.
“Ha, right. Yeah. Come on, Nate, you don’t like me. You’ve just been stuck in this apartment with me for a week and I’ve been flirting with you all the time. And even if you did, the problem is, you don’t want to like me. Because you’re a serial monogamist and I’m not the kind of girl you want to take home to meet the family.”
“What? No, that’s—where did you . . . ?” Nate shakes his head, frowning, and then moves suddenly to grab my mug off me, placing both our drinks on the coffee table and then sitting with one knee tucked up on the sofa so that he’s facing me. His expression is softer now, and he smiles. “Immy, believe me, I don’t like you because I’ve had to put up with you for a week. I like you because you’re . . . ”
“Chaotic?”
“A hurricane,” he says again. “You think I’ve turned your whole view of yourself upside down? What do you think you’ve been doing to me from the moment we matched? I like order and routine and structure and maybe that makes me boring—”
“It doesn’t make you boring.”
It does, a bit.
“But you make me want to enjoy it, even if it is boring, because it’s my thing. You know?”
“I don’t,” I admit.
“You just really live your life—”
“Not very well, it seems.”
“But you live it,” Nate points out. “And it’s yours. I think I forgot what that felt like, a little.”
“Are you sure you didn’t put some vodka in your tea?” I ask, scrutinizing his mug, but Nate laughs. He clasps my free hand, and with his other, strokes some of the hair back from my cheek.
“Imogen, I really like you. And not to sound either really cheesy or clingy as hell, but if things had been different and you hadn’t bailed on me after one night, and we’d have gone on a few dates . . . If it counts for anything, I’d have been proud to have taken you home to meet my family.”
I search his face, warmth spreading through my chest and my pulse racing wildly.
This time, it’s definitely A Moment, and it’s definitely happening for both of us. He looks a little nervous throughout his speech— vulnerable—the kind of thing that would normally put me off a guy.
Now, with him, it’s endearing. It’s everything.
He’s nervous it’s A Moment only for him, the way I felt the other night.
But it’s not, because he wants to date me, he wants to take me home to meet his family, and . . .
“Nate,” I tell him softly, “I’d really like that.”
This time, when I dive forward to kiss him, Nate meets me halfway, in a messy clash of lips and teeth and tongues, our hands grabbing at each other to pull the other closer, Nate eventually losing his balance enough to fall backward, pulling me down with him so we’re lying on the sofa, breathless even from just a kiss. He cups my face in his hands, kissing my lips, my nose, my forehead, and I melt.
“Nate?”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me again.”
And oh, he does.
apartment #6 – ethan
Chapter Thirty-one