I’d told my family as little as possible about the thoughts and feelings I’d sorted through while I was gone and what had happened the night before in the gallery. All while trying to turn the conversation to any other subject whenever Graham and my dad started freaking out over a small detail that they were blowing out of proportion—which was practically the entire time. My mom had still been begging for more details after noticing my evasiveness, and I’d only escaped by saying I’d needed to shower and get to Jagger’s.
Thankfully my brother and dad were still trying to decode certain things I’d said by the time I’d gotten ready and come back down. With my mom acting as the peacekeeper on Jagger’s behalf and mine, I was able to slip out after a quick good-bye without giving my mom the chance to corner me.
And now I was there, staring at the stupid metal door like it had the power of changing everything. Like what I decided to do in the next five seconds would give the wrong message to Jagger. I laughed to myself when I realized minutes had gone by with me just standing there, before finally unlocking the door and letting myself in.
“Jag?” I called out when I didn’t hear music or see any sign of him. “Jagger?”
Shit. I should’ve called. Or knocked. I totally picked the wrong option.
Turning around, I took three steps toward the door before a deep voice stopped me. “Where you going?”
As I looked over my shoulder and up to the loft, a soft smile crossed my face when I saw him leaning over the railing, his hands covered in lingering charcoal, his face and neck covered in smudges.
“You have a little something there . . . well, kind of everywhere.”
He rolled his eyes, but his signature lopsided smile offset the action. “I’m working on it. Are you hungry?”
“A little.”
“Can I take you out?”
My smile widened. “Covered in charcoal?” I teased. “And since when do you have to ask me if we can grab food?”
“Since when do you take off after not being able to find me for half a minute?” he challenged.
I searched for something to say other than the unspoken questions lingering in my mind. How much has changed between us now? What has changed? When nothing came to mind, I simply shrugged. “Apparently since now.”
Jagger watched me for a few seconds, and I knew he was trying to figure out the questions I’d just avoided. With a small nod, he pushed off the railing and took a step back. “Give me a couple minutes and I’ll be ready.”
In all the years since Jagger and I had become friends, I’d never felt awkward while waiting for him at his place. When he’d lived with his mom and Charlie, I’d wait in his room with Ben, or by myself. During college it had been the same. Just like he and Ben had always done with me. There had never really been any privacy among the three of us, and that had continued on after Ben died. But now I was terrified. I didn’t know what he would think if I went up to the loft to wait for him, or what he would think if I didn’t. I didn’t want him to think something might happen if he walked out of the bathroom and found me waiting on his bed, but quickly realized he’d had years to think this and had never acted on it.
It was then I realized I was the one who was making things awkward. Not Jagger. Not the change in our relationship. I, with my fear of the unknown, was making this harder than it needed to be. I knew I couldn’t worry about what might happen between us, or doing or saying the wrong thing. This was Jagger, my best friend and the one guy who knew absolutely everything about me, and had seen me at my worst. He was the guy I’d fallen in love with at some point in my life.
Just because I’d finally acknowledged that truth didn’t mean that we had to change.
With a deep breath, I dropped my purse and keys on the bar and walked across the room and up the stairs to the loft. The water from the shower was running, and I caught myself looking at the closed door to the bathroom. I’d seen Jagger na**d before. From the times we’d all skinny-dipped in the lake, and from others when I’d come to his place and he hadn’t been expecting me while he was changing or just getting out of the shower. But now I couldn’t stop thinking about him in the shower, the way his body looked, the way it would feel.
It took a second to realize my body was trembling and my breaths were too quick and shallow. I was on the edge of hyperventilating and, at the same time, welcoming the way my body slowly heated at the thoughts I’d just been having of him. The dizzying waves, shaking, and cold sweat that had just covered my body, mixed with a heat that had everything to do with the guy currently in the shower, were too much. I took hard and deep breaths in and out as I tried to calm myself, but my conflicting thoughts were only making it worse.
Knowing I was allowed to think about him in the way I had been didn’t stop me from going back to my old way of thinking. That I couldn’t do that to Ben, that it was spitting on his memory.
I can’t do this. I can’t do this.
Gripping the chain around my neck, I tried to push those thoughts out of my mind, but they were loud. Too loud. Suddenly Jagger was right in front of me, and my eyes flew open when I felt him there. I focused on his worried expression as he knelt between my legs, both hands cupping my cheeks as he mumbled over and over again for me to breathe. And it was there and then, in the calm that poured through my body and the way my chest warmed as I stared into his green eyes, that I knew I could do this. That I remembered why I hadn’t been able to let him walk away from me the night before.