I had a hard time concentrating as his knee rubbed mine and his scent wrapped me up. I tried to fight the feeling of contentment, but it was a losing battle. By the time we finished, I was leaning against his shoulder with his arm around me. Despite everything, I was happy. Travis had me laughing as he helped me. He was so sweet.
“So, do you feel better about Calculus now?” He was grinning at me as he asked.
“Yes. Now, if I could just understand the theories behind Stats, I would be good. I can do the homework, since it’s all in Excel, but the professor expects us to understand what is going on behind the scenes too.” I rubbed my eyes again.
He pulled me closer. “Come here, Babe. You need to relax. You wanna do a movie night tonight?” Oh, that sounded good.
“Sure. What do you want to watch?” I couldn’t really see his face the way we were sitting, but I felt the laugh rumble through his chest.
“Whatever you want. There’s a man-cave here too, with a big TV screen, and a huge selection of movies. After dinner, you can pick out a movie.”
At the word dinner, my stomach growled loudly. “I am hungry. What’s for dinner anyway?” I asked as I pushed away from him.
“Janelle is cooking, so I don’t know.” I glanced at him, to find his eyes on my lips. My face felt like it was on fire as I quickly looked away. He put a finger under my chin and made me look at him. His eyes were brilliant blue and locked on mine. I bit my bottom lip. He chuckled again, and ran his thumb over my lip, freeing it from my teeth. “I’m not going to push it, Evalia. Just know that I really want to kiss you right now. I understand you want to take things slow, and I will respect that.” He leaned forward, using his finger that was still under my chin to angle my face away as he placed a small kiss on my cheek. “I will settle for this right now.”
My heart skipped a beat. I was torn, I really wanted him to kiss me, but I didn’t want to rush things at the same time. Briefly, I wondered what his lips tasted like. My eyes bounced between his eyes and his lips. I was starting to lean towards him, intent on his lips, when a throat cleared behind him. I jumped back, sure my face was bright red.
“Sorry to interrupt, but dinner is ready. We won’t wait for you two.” Janelle laughed as she closed the door behind her.
I sagged. The way we were sitting, I couldn’t even get up without climbing over Travis's lap, which was probably a bad idea at the moment. He laughed and got up. He held his hand out to help me up. I accepted and he pulled me up against him and held me close for a minute. I leaned my head against his shoulder while he wrapped his arms around me. We stood like that for a moment, until I pushed off him.
I ran my fingers across his cheek, liking the feel of the scruffy five o’clock shadow he was sporting. “We better get out there, or Janelle is going to think something more is going on in here.” I reluctantly moved away from him.
He chuckled as he said, “Why does what Janelle think matter? But, my baby needs to eat. Come on, let’s go.” He took my hand and pulled me after him into the dining room.
David was already at the table, with a dark look on his face. He glared at Travis for a minute before moving his glare to me. It shook me. I knew he wasn’t happy about sharing me, but I didn’t know it was that bad. Unfortunately, when I checked my mental block, it was down, so he had heard everything that had happened. It felt like I was rubbing his face in it.
“Sorry, David.” I sat down next to him.
He sighed. “It’s fine. I’ll get over it.” I rubbed his arm as I looked around.
“Janelle, do you need help bringing out dinner?” I called into the kitchen.
“Nope, Kait and I have it. We’ll be out in just a second.”
True to her word, less than a minute later, they came through the door, each with a couple of trays. There was fried chicken, rolls, green beans, and some weird-looking breaded thing. I glanced at it and raised an eyebrow. Kait chuckled. “It’s fried okra, Princess.” I just shrugged. I had never heard of it.
I took a plate and piled some food on it, being slightly less generous than usual. Even though I was hungry, I wasn’t as famished as I had been recently. While we ate, we talked about everyone’s day. David complained about one of his professors giving him a hard time about missing class, and Travis gave him shit over it. I sat quietly, wondering just what the hell I was going to do. David eventually elbowed me to get my attention. “Travis said we are doing a movie night. What are we going to watch?”
I had a mouthful of okra, so I just shrugged. Once I swallowed, I said, “I don’t know what movies y’all have here. I was going to look at the selection once we are done with dinner.”
He just nodded and didn’t say anything more. He was moving his food around sulkily while staring at the plate. I watched him, sad that I had caused this mood. He glanced up at me and smiled before patting my hand. “It’s not your fault, Sugar. I had a hard day. I swear, I will be okay. I just need to get some things sorted in my mind.”
His words caused a swirl of
