The Space In Between

Chapter Seven

UGH. I FELT terrible for how harsh I’d had to be with Cooper, yet I knew if I hadn’t been he would still show up. And I’d needed to make it clear to him that I wasn’t interested in getting to know him, or anyone else for that matter, anytime soon. I stood outside of the café and literally counted the beats of my heart. One hundred and twenty beats per minute. I turned back to look through the glass window at Cooper and pounded my fist against my waist.
“We need rules,” I insisted as I barged back into the café and sat across from him.
“Pretty Woman rules?”
I smirked at his sarcastic tone and took off my sunglasses. “I’m serious, Cooper. Listen, I’m messed up. I really am. And you’re…” I stopped, not wanting to offend him. He sipped at his coffee and kept his eyes on me. “You’re going through some stuff, too.”
“This is true.”
“But for the first time in a long time…last night...for a small bit of a moment, I didn’t feel like constantly dying.” I rubbed my eyes, and cussed under my breath, realizing there was eyeliner on my fingers, which meant it was smeared all across my face. Without hesitation, Coop took a napkin and wiped the hot mess that had attacked me and turned me into raccoon eyes. A rush of heat ran through my body from his touch, a feeling I would beat myself up for later on.
He sat the napkin down and held up his index finger on his left hand. “Andrea. Over here is Chaos. Which we both know pretty well. And over here…” The right hand index finger flew up. “Over here is Order. I’m gonna assume both of us are pretty damn far from Order, yet we’ve already hit rock bottom Chaos. So how about we just explore the space in between the two?”
The space in between. The place where we wouldn’t have to talk about the past or worry about the future. The place where we didn’t get personal or talk about our dreams and fears. The place where any level of affection and tenderness was simply a way to forget about past hurts. A type of drug that drowned out the rest of the world. I could do the space in between.
“We can have a code word so we don’t have to call or text each other asking for…”
“Sex?” He smiled as he raised an eyebrow. I could feel my cheeks redden as I nodded.
His eyes shifted towards the table next to us, where a woman was holding her drink. “Soda pop.”
“Soda pop?”
As he lowered his voice, his eyes narrowed and zoned in on me. “Soda pop has a way of always being wet and with the right amount of pressure…with the right amount of constant shaking, it will suddenly…”
“—Explode…” I softly sighed. He was being overtly sexual. He sat back in his chair and sipped at his coffee. Crap, now I knew my whole face was the color of a freaking tomato. Back to the topic at hand and not how I was suddenly in need of a Coca-Cola.
“And when one wants out?” I asked.
“One walks away. It’s that simple. No strings. No commitment. No sitting by the telephone waiting for a call. If person A finds Order in their life first, then person B must respect that and move on.” He leaned across the table closer to me and his sexy southern sounds made my insides twist. “We need another safe word. If it gets too serious.”
“Panda,” I said.
With one eyebrow raised, he questioned my word choice. “Panda?”
“It’s my favorite animal.” I leaned closer to him as he moved a piece of my hair from my face.
“That sounds personal.”
Crap. He is right. Before I could respond, his lips were traveling over mine and I let him explore my palate awhile before pulling back. Somehow overnight I had grown quite addicted to his kisses. Perhaps it was his kisses alone that dragged me back into the café. He picked up a toothpick from the table as he stood up and placed it between his lips.
“Panda works for me.” He winked at me and walked out of the café leaving me sitting there, biting my bottom lip. I wanted to chase after him, push him up against a wall, and slide my tongue against his neck. I wanted to moan his name softly as his hands traveled to my butt and lightly squeezed it. I wanted him to lift me up. I wanted to wrap myself around him as I whispered the words soda pop into his ear over and over again.
But I figured I should play it cool. I didn’t want to seem needy. I’d wait for him to text me. There was no way I’d text him.
Crap, crap, crap. Panda, panda, panda.