“I got a chair with a view too,” he replied, his eyes on me telling me what his view was. “And mine’s better.”
I felt warmth in my cheeks and looked to my plate.
“Watched you walk into Home last night, no . . . giving you the honesty, watched your ass walk into Home last night, my plans of havin’ a few and relaxing after the week went up in smoke. Got up next to you, you looked at me, thought you were gonna bolt. Shocked the shit outta me you told me your name when I asked it,” he declared while I turned my attention back to him. “Maybe margarita courage that kept you where you were, just you in the beginning though. Now you’re here, you keep putting on your panties when you know I’m just gonna take ’em off, which means you gotta know I’m into you but you still can’t take a compliment for shit.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He shook his head slowly, not taking his eyes off me.
“It’s your thing and you got no clue, and I seriously don’t know if I should give you one but I’m gonna. You work it, Izzy, so don’t apologize for it.”
I ducked my head and grabbed a slice of toast.
Johnny chuckled.
“Yeah, it’s your thing,” he muttered.
I tore a bite of toast off, eyes to the table, chewed it, swallowed and announced, “I used your toothpaste.”
“Seeing as I kissed you after you did it, that kinda wasn’t lost on me.”
My gaze flitted to his to see him taking a bite of his bacon. “I didn’t use your toothbrush, though.”
He swallowed before he stated, “Iz, you’ve spent time sitting on my face. Do you think I give a shit you use my toothbrush?”
I was somewhat appalled. “That’s kind of gross.”
“Sitting on my face?” he asked, though I could tell by the sparkle in his eyes he was teasing.
“No,” I said swiftly.
“Since you didn’t use it, I don’t have to be grossed out by it.”
“True,” I mumbled, putting my toast on my plate and picking up some bacon.
“I understand,” he said quietly and I looked again to him while I chewed bacon. “You had to go through my stuff to find toothpaste. You don’t want me to think you got nosy. But I got nothing to hide, Izzy.”
I nodded.
This all seemed very weird, complicated with a good deal of it contradictory, but at least that was good to know.
“Your bathroom is really nice,” I observed and it came again.
He turned off, looked at his plate.
Shut me out.
The Izzy I was normally would ignore it, find some way to move around it, but something made me ask, “Sorry, I . . . you . . . am I stepping where I shouldn’t?”
His black eyes came direct to me and they weren’t entirely impassive. There was something in their depths. I just couldn’t read it.
But surprisingly, he gave it to me.
“Left my old place, sold the place I grew up, fixed up this place and moved in after my dad died.”
“Oh God, Johnny, I’m so sorry.”
“There’s shit in my life I’m not big on talking about. Was tight with my dad. So that’s some of it.”
I nodded. “Of course, sorry. So sorry.”
He nabbed another slice of bacon. “You didn’t know so no need to apologize.”
“Right. Okay,” I replied quickly.
But even though this was an explanation, something niggled at me because I found it odd if he was still so deeply affected by his father’s passing, why he’d chosen to be in a place that daily, hourly, each second he was in it, reminded him of that in such a way it clearly bothered him.
I knew what it was like to lose a parent because I’d lost both. How that came about, I’d had no choice but to let them go and I’d lost each in entirely different, but not equally agonizing, ways.
I knew how hard it was. I knew how painful. No matter what way you lost them.
I also knew escaping anything that brought additional pain was a good coping mechanism.
So I wondered, no matter how fabulous this space was, why he didn’t find his way to that.
I did not ask this as it became clear even if I’d asked, he more than likely would not tell me.
This made something else clear.
This was not a getting-to-know-you date.
This wasn’t a date at all.
This was a hookup.
This was not something beginning.
This was something else.
Not just sex, as such.
But something I’d never encountered.
And as handsome as he was, as nice as it was that he gave me the best seat (and all the rest), even if I wanted that to be the type of girl I was (and I actually did), that wasn’t the type of girl I was.
I always wanted more.
Sitting there I realized with more pain than it should cause, I wanted this maybe especially from Johnny.
“Baby.”
That came gently and I turned my attention to him.
“Not sure I like the look on your face. It seems a lifetime ago but also like yesterday. Most the time, I just live with it. But sometimes I have bad days. This is one of those days.”
This was one of those days.
A sunny early summer morning in his house . . . with me.
“My mom died of cancer, Johnny, so I get that.”
He stared at me.
“Ate her up. She was dead in six months,” I shared.
He blinked.
“I miss her every day, and if I let it in, I miss her every second.”
“Iz,” he whispered, a wealth of meaning and understanding and a lot more in his saying my name, all of it, for his sake on a bad day where I was sharing that day with him thus him having that understanding didn’t make me feel real great.
I didn’t focus on that.
“But that wasn’t the meaning behind the look on my face,” I told him, surprising myself at my candor.
“What was the meaning?” he asked.
I didn’t know what was happening. What this was. Where it led.
I just knew I liked him a whole lot for a whole lot of reasons, the most recent him being thoughtful enough to give me the seat at the dining room table in his own home that had the best view.
But it seemed he liked me mostly because he could have sex with me and I amused him with my shy ways in the midst of me having lots of sex with him.
He let me talk about myself, and he listened, because that was easier than sharing about himself, something it had become clear he didn’t intend to do. Or at least not without a goodly amount of effort on my part and with little elaboration when he gave me something.
He shared his body and his talents in bed without a problem though.
So I might not have a lot of experience with a hookup, but one and one were equaling one in this equation, not the path to there maybe being a two.
“I need to go home. Deanna took care of my animals but I have things to do today,” I declared.
This was somewhat a lie. I had one thing to do, which would take me ten minutes.
He put his fork to his plate and sat back in his seat, eyes on me.
“So do you mind, after I help you clean up, taking me back to my car?” I asked.
He studied me pensively as he answered, “You don’t have to help me clean up.”
“I don’t want to be rude.”
He didn’t respond to that.
He tipped his chin down to my plate and asked, “You get enough to eat?”