Even when I’d pissed him off, he couldn’t lay off the big brother routine. Paying for the cab, opening doors, making sure I didn’t fall down the stairs.
I didn’t take the handrail. Instead, I moved up the stairs faster, taking a couple of them at a time. It wasn’t him I was upset with—it was me. Having my roommate show such concern for me should have made me grateful. Instead, I felt let down. Because I didn’t want my roommate treating me like a family member—I wanted him to be like some hero in one of those classic stories I’d read in high school. I wanted him to pursue me. To crave me. To lose sleep over me. To be mad with sickness if he couldn’t be near me.
I wanted Soren to want me. The way every woman in the world desired to be wanted.
“Hayden, be careful.” His footsteps hurried behind me. “Slow down. I don’t need you tripping on that dress and spilling down the stairs.”
“I’m fine.” My feet moved faster, my heel strikes filling the stairwell.
“No, you’re pissed. And pissed people trip and fall down stairs.” He caught up to me, his hand circling around my arm in an attempt to slow me.
I shook off his hand. “Don’t touch me.”
“Why are you acting like such a child?” He kept moving up the stairs with me, one arm braced behind me just in case.
“A child,” I stated, twisting around to face him once I’d reached the top of the stairs. I held my arms out at my sides to show him I’d made it up six flights in four-inch heels and a floor-length gown all on my own. “Because that’s what I am to you, right? A helpless kid who needs someone to look after her?”
Soren clearly hadn’t been expecting me to stop. He bumped into me when he reached the top. “A child? What? No.”
He steadied me with his hands after knocking into me, but again, I shrugged them away. Having him touch me now was painful since I’d accepted what I’d been trying to deny for weeks. I liked Soren. I really liked him.
“Where is all of this coming from? My head feels like it’s about to break off from all of the whiplash I’ve sustained tonight.”
“Whatever, Soren.” I moved toward our apartment, searching for the key buried in my clutch. “You’re not the only person with whiplash.” I thought of all the looks, the comments, the moments where I’d thought, when I’d hoped . . .
My gaze dropped to something resting on the floor outside of our door. A plate of cookies. Homemade peanut butter ones. His favorite. Stuck to the plastic wrap was a yellow sticky, signed Mrs. Lopez. There was even an XOXO.
At least this note didn’t have a desperate lipstick kiss on it.
Why did all of the women of New York have to want the first man I’d ever wanted? The same one I was forced to share a small, confined space with?
The stars were screwing with me. Big time. Although with the way I was acting lately, I totally deserved it.
Soren crouched to snag the plate of cookies, already peeling back the plastic wrap and going in for one.
“Mrs. Lopez left some of her goodies for you,” I said, stating the obvious. “And why does she go by Mrs.? Is she married?”
Soren held the plate up toward me, one cookie already shoved in his mouth. “Not anymore. And what do you have against Mrs. Lopez?”
“Nothing. It’s you who’s had something against Mrs. Lopez.” As soon as I had the door open, I powered inside. “Your body,” I added under my breath, the very essence of mature.
“Great, and now Mrs. Lopez?” The door slammed shut behind him, his footsteps rumbling after me. “First the chick back at the party, and now her? You’re acting kind of—” His footsteps came to a halt at the same time his voice did.
I ducked behind my partition and yanked off my jacket before he could get in my face to make me confirm or deny what he’d just silently accused me of. “No, I’m not.”
“Whoa. Yes. You are.” Two footsteps rang toward me. “You’re jealous.”
There it was. He’d said it. It was a nasty word. A highly flammable one.
A true one.
“I am very unjealous,” I announced, capping my response with an insulted huff.
He was quiet after that. Quiet was bad. Especially where Soren was concerned. It meant he was thinking. Contemplating.
After tossing my jacket onto my new mattress, I yanked the bow free behind my back and started working to loosen the corseting. Even with all of my nervous energy, I made barely any progress. Looked like I was going to be sleeping in the gown tonight.
“Why are you jealous?”
His words made me freeze. Not because of the question, but because of the way he’d asked it. I didn’t know a person could sound that vulnerable. When I leaned my head around the partition just enough to see him, I found his whole exterior matching. Vulnerable. Exposed. Bared.
I didn’t understand why he looked the same way I felt. How he looked even more so.
“Why, Hayden?” His forehead lined as his throat moved. “Why are you jealous?”
I had to slide behind the partition again. It was hard to hear his voice—it was hell to see him at the same time.
“I can’t answer that, because I’m not. Jealous,” I added, just to make it clear. Clear to him I was telling the truth, clear to me I was lying.
Getting back to yanking on the ribbons of the dress, I let out a frustrated yelp when I wound up tightening a link instead of loosening it.
“Need some help?”
No.
“Yes.”
My answer surprised me. For once, I felt like my words matched how I really felt where Soren was concerned.
The sound of his heel strikes moving toward me gave me goose bumps. When he came around the partition, I felt my throat dry to cotton. He’d yanked his bow tie loose and popped the top couple of buttons of his dress shirt undone. I so rarely saw him without his ball cap, I found myself staring at his hair, mussed from the way he’d styled it earlier. Probably from running his fingers through it in frustration from dealing with me the last hour.
I wanted to run my fingers through it. To feel it slide across my skin, curl over my knuckles—I wanted to hear the sound that would spill from his lips if I gave it a solid pull.
My heart was beating so fast, I felt like it was about to split out of my chest.
“Turn around.” His voice was distant, tired.
Turning in place, I felt his hands drop into place before I finished moving. They went straight to work, moving deftly, precisely. More raised skin. More prickles spilling down the column of my spine.
He didn’t say anything. Neither did I. The only sound was that of the ribbons being manipulated by his hands. Each loosening should have made it easier to breathe, but instead, it made it harder. The more freedom my lungs had, the more strained they felt.
I guessed I knew why. Before, Soren had been helping me get dressed.
Now, Soren Decker was helping me undress.
That realization drew an uneven exhale from with the next loosening tug of his hands.
“Almost done.”