“I’ll probably just wait till I get home to do it. All my luggage is in the car, so…”
“Gotcha.”
More silence.
He cleared his throat. “So, uh…you think you’ll come to McGee’s Friday night?”
“Oh, um…I guess so. Obviously I haven’t talked to Donna and Jen yet, but…”
It was small talk.
Painfully awkward small talk.
“Right, well…” He took another sip of his coffee and tried to think of how to say what he wanted to say. Putting his mug down on the table a little too forcefully, he hissed as the hot liquid splashed on his hand. Willow immediately handed him a napkin. “Thanks.”
“Levi…”
“Willow…”
They looked at each other and laughed at how they both started to speak at the same time.
“Sorry,” she said. “You go first.”
Now he was almost afraid to, but he knew if he didn’t–if he left here without telling her how he felt–he’d regret it.
“Willow, you know I’ve always thought how amazing you are,” he began and saw her expression fall a little. “I want you to know that…”
“No,” she quickly interrupted. “Don’t. Please.”
“Don’t what?”
Her shoulders sagged as she looked up at him with a sad smile. “I know what you’re going to say, and if it’s okay with you, I’d really rather not have to sit here and tell me what a good friend I am and how fun this all was…blah, blah, blah.” She waved her hand around. “I know we talked about this back at the hotel and all and I get it. We’re still friends, Levi. And…I’ll be okay. Really. It’s not your fault that I started to think of it as something more.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, shoving the coffee aside. “Are you saying that…you’d like to be more than friends?”
She looked away, but not before he saw the flush of her cheeks. “Come on, Levi, don’t make me say it. It’s embarrassing enough…”
Reaching for her hand, she jumped and spilled her coffee. They both stood up, and when Willow went to reach from some paper towels, he stopped her.
“Levi, I need to clean this up!”
“Not until I say what I need to say,” he said firmly.
With a huff, she looked at him, but her gaze kept straying to the coffee that was now dripping off the table and onto the floor.
“Okay, fine. We’ll clean this up, and then I’m saying what I need to say!”
Way to sound firm, dude.
Together they quickly cleaned up the mess, but he didn’t let her sit down. Instead, he took both of her hands in his and waited for her to look at him. “I want you to know that it’s important to me for us to be friends.”
She started to pull her hands away, but he held on.
“But I also want more, Willow. I realize it was all supposed to be make-believe, but…there were real feelings there for me. I don’t want things to go back to the way they were before. I want to see where this goes. I want you to be my friend and my lover.” He tugged her in close. “I want you to be my girlfriend for real.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Oh, okay then.” Her smile grew as she moved in closer. Levi released her hands, and her arms immediately went around him. “In that case, I’d really like to kiss my boyfriend good morning.”
“And as your boyfriend, I’m totally on board with this.”
Up on tiptoes, Willow pressed her lips to his, and it was the perfect kind of lazy kiss to start the day. And he couldn’t wait to start more of them this way.
Things escalated quickly, and as much as he knew he needed to leave and she needed to get ready for work, that didn’t mean they shouldn’t commemorate this change in their relationship by doing…well…pretty much what they’d been doing for days.
But this time, they were both a little more vocal about how they felt toward each other. He realized they’d each been holding back a little bit of themselves and once they were breathless and lying beside each other, he turned to her and said, “Was it me or did that feel so much better than it has in the past?”
“You mean in the last four days?”
“Well…yeah.”
“It did,” she said with a soft hum, rolling toward him. “It was definitely better, and I didn’t think that was even possible.”
Chuckling, he replied, “Me, either. But just to play it safe, we should keep doing it. A lot.”
“Right now?” she cried. “Oh, God, Levi, I don’t know if my hoo-ha can take anymore. She needs a rest!”
“Your…what?”
Burying her face against his chest, she laughed. “Never mind! Forget I said it!”
As much as he wanted to tease her a little more, he saw it was getting late and knew she needed to get ready for work. Placing a kiss on the top of her head, he maneuvered away from her and stood up, pulling his clothes back on for the second time this morning. She was watching him hungrily, and it took all he had not to strip again and join her back on the bed.
“I really need to go.”
“It was the hoo-ha, right? I ruined things. I swear I’m not really a huge dork! Just…give me another chance and I swear to say things in my head before I say them out loud!”
Laughing softly, he leaned down and kissed her again. “This has nothing to do with your hoo-ha–and yes, I know what that is–and everything to do with the fact that you need to go to work. And honestly, so do I. It’s going to be a long day and I know I’m going to be swamped.”
“Yeah, me too.” She rolled over and sat up, pulling the sheet up to cover herself. “And I really need to shower and get caught up with all my dog peeps too. Then there’s grocery shopping. Ugh…now I’m overwhelmed.”
“Don’t be.” He slid his sneakers on and kissed her again. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
She nodded.
“But…you can
