“The light please, Nat?” He sounded annoyed.
“In a minute.”
He opened his eyes. “What?”
“I came over here to surprise you.”
His eyes closed again, but he managed a small smile. “Thank you. It’s nice.”
I took a breath. “I was hoping to seduce you.”
“Seduce me?” He chuckled.
“Yeah.” I slid down under the covers, put an arm around him, and pressed my lower body against his, trying to work up more enthusiasm than I actually felt. “We haven’t done it in a while. I was hoping to remedy that.” I felt nothing stir between us. Or within me.
He patted my back. “Not tonight, babe. So tired.”
Don’t be boring. Be fiery. Even though I wasn’t really feeling it, I reached between his legs to encourage him a little and he jumped, pulling away from me. “Hey. Not tonight, OK? I said I’m too tired.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Feeling rebuffed, I turned away from him, reached out and switched off the lamp, then got back under the covers. Dan started snoring right away, but I lay on my back for a while, staring at the ceiling.
This was not the rekindling of desire I’d hoped for. On the contrary, it was awkward and embarrassing, and it forced me to take a good hard look at the truth.
Something was off.
Something had been off for a long time.
? ? ?
After work the next day, I went home and took a two-hour nap. I’d felt like the walking dead since my alarm went off, going through the motions of my work day without speaking any more than necessary, and nearly dozing off ten different times. The moment I got home, I collapsed onto my bed fully clothed. Facedown, I slept hard, and I woke up to the sound of my cell phone ringing. It was Dan.
We hadn’t spoken at all yet. I’d gotten up and left for the shop without waking him, and he hadn’t called me from work. The shower thing had been bothering me all day, because the only explanation that made any sense at all—that he’d been with another woman—was so unpalatable.
It’s not that I was mad—I couldn’t really blame him for spoiling my seduction scene, since he hadn’t known about it in the first place, and by one-thirty in the morning, I was tired too. Still, I’d been willing to have a go at it, and it rankled a bit that he hadn’t even been interested in trying. He was twenty-seven, for heaven’s sake! Weren’t guys his age supposed to be ready to go all the time? I bet Miles never turns a woman down because he’s tired. In fact, all day long, I’d been shoving the image of him and that bartender out of my head. I had no idea why it bothered me so much—I’d been reading about his sex life for years without being envious or judgmental. But now it felt different.
Frowning, I rolled onto my back and accepted the call. “Hello?”
“Hey, babe.”
“Hi.”
“You about ready?”
For a second I was confused, and then I remembered we were having dinner with Skylar and Sebastian tonight. “Oh, crap. I forgot. I’ve been asleep for two hours.”
“Want to bail on dinner? I’m tired too.”
“No.” I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. “We can’t do that. Just pick me up in twenty. I can get ready fast.”
“OK.”
I pinned up my hair and quickly jumped in the shower, the warm water reviving me a bit. As I soaped, I thought about Miles’s fingertips on my tattoo last night, and felt an unwelcome pull in my stomach. Jeez, Miles, get out of my head already! But as I dried myself off, I wondered what he’d done today and what he was up to tonight. Did he have other friends in town? Would he see Jamie again? Would he spend the night in alone? I entertained a brief fantasy of us just hanging out on the couch watching TV together before getting mad at myself.
Stop thinking about him, and don’t even bring his name up tonight. You’ve got enough to deal with in your relationship without adding any jealous tension. Forcing Miles from my thoughts, I chose a black sundress and sandals from my closet, and had just enough time after putting them on to shake out my hair and put on a little makeup. Dan knocked just as I was tucking a few things into a small purse, and I grabbed my keys on the way out the door.
“Hey,” he said, kissing my cheek. “You look great.”
“Thanks. So do you.” Dan always looked good in a suit. I liked the way his big shoulders filled out a jacket, although he always complained it made finding the right size difficult. Built totally different than Miles, I thought, foiling my plan to stop thinking about him. Both have nice, athletic bodies, but Miles has a leaner frame. A soccer player’s body, not a linebacker’s.
On our way to the restaurant, I noticed Dan kept biting one of his thumbnails, which he did when he was nervous about something. He wasn’t talking much, either. Maybe he’s embarrassed about last night. “Everything OK?” I asked.
He dropped his hand to the wheel. “Sure. Why?”
“I don’t know. You seem worried or something. You’re so quiet.”