Page 33 of No Take Backs

I barely have time to breathe, let alone get ready. As soon as the door closes behind them, I’m a whirlwind of activity, darting into the bathroom to quickly shave my armpits and legs. Once I’m nice and smooth, I race to rummage through my closet for something that strikes the right balance between casual and ‘I put in some effort for you.’

“Hi.” I hold the door open for him, smiling when he walks in with two massive bags of food from the Chinese place in town. “That’s a lot of food.”

Josh doesn’t even look the slightest bit ashamed. “I eat a lot, and you said that you like everything from there, so I got two of all the things I like and whatever you don’t eat won’t go to waste.”

I lead the way into the dining room and leave him there while I go into the kitchen to get plates and forks.

“You don’t eat in the living room?” Josh looks at me with a strange smile on his face, and I stop in my tracks, holding the dinnerware like a weirdo.

“What?” I ask, my voice a little higher than I intended, as a sudden wave of self-consciousness washes over me. I glance down at myself, irrationally worried that I might have forgotten to put on pants or that there’s something else glaringly wrong. But no, I’m dressed the same as I was right before I opened the door. I’m not living in one of my worst nightmares, being caught naked in a social situation.

The way Josh is looking at me, though, makes me feel like there’s something more he’s seeing, something beneath the surface that he’s analyzing me over. It’s disarming, and I’m not entirely sure how to respond.

Josh motions to the table, where he is pulling out containers of food. “You’re using your dining room. I think you’re the only person besides my mom who actually uses their dining room.”

I flush under the scrutiny. “I’m gonna be honest, Josh. I usually eat on the couch. But I want to get to know you, especially if we’re going to be doing dirty things and working together. If we eat in the living room, we won’t be getting to know each other. Well, I mean, we won’t be getting to know each other outside of physical things.” If it was possible for me to turn any redder in that moment, I’d be a tomato.

“What you’re saying is that you don’t trust yourself around me if we’re on the couch.” Josh sits at the table, smiling the entire time. “I think I can relate. When I saw you at Lucy’s that night, it took every bit of my determination not to kiss you right there. And maybe flip you over my shoulder and take you to my place.” He chuckles. “Although, it’s a hell of a lot harder to keep my hands to myself when we’re working together.”

“Zip it,” I say, trying to sound stern, but the smirk that tugs at my lips betrays me. Because the truth is, I’ve had the exact same problem. Every time I see him, all the common sense I’ve spent years cultivating seems to evaporate into thin air. It’s like he’s a magnet, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t help but be drawn to him. The way he looks at me, it’s like I’m the only person in the room. It’s intoxicating. And maybe that’s why I’m so nervous, why I feel like I need to keep some distance, even though all I want to do is close the gap between us. I’ve got a shitty track record, and I can’t fuck this up. Not with him.

“Tell me about you,” I say once I have a plate of crab rangoons and fried rice in front of me. “I want to know all the things that you don’t like to share with other people. Who you are and what you like to do. The reason you stopped being a cop.”

He pauses, a fried dumpling halfway to his mouth. “So, what? You want me to tell you everything about me, but you don’t want to tell me about yourself?”

“I’m nothing special,” I tell him, the honesty almost choking me as I say it.

“Liar.” Josh eats the dumpling before saying anything else. “I’ll tell you what,” he goes on like he hasn’t just taken three minutes to eat the damn thing. “Why don’t we play twenty questions. Anything you ask me, you have to answer about yourself.”

When I don’t say anything, he pulls a six-pack of hard apple cider out of another bag.

“To make it interesting?”

He nods. “So, let’s see. You wanted to know why I stopped being a cop. That’s a heavy question. Are you sure you want to open with that one?” He raises an eyebrow and pops the lid on one of the ciders. “Turnabout means that you have to tell me why you don’t date cops.”

I cringe at his very blatant poke at the first night we spent together. “Okay, maybe let’s not start there.”

Josh takes a short pull of his drink and then pops the lid on a second cider, which he offers to me.

“Thanks.” I spin it around between my hands. “Okay, I’ll go first. I meant what I said. There’s nothing special about me. I like to read, and I was going to be a doctor. Until there was a car accident my senior year of college. The paramedics who saved my friend’s life entranced me. Watching them move with all the speed and grace and surety of someone who knew exactly what they were doing in an emergency was the best drug. The rest is history.” That is safe. An easy question, with a simple answer.

“My brother is a doctor,” Josh tells me. “He used to live near Portland and had a house in Sebago. Until his wife went crazy and he wanted to start over.”

I file that bit of information away for later. My mom knows everything about everyone at the hospital, and she’ll give me all the juicy details. “My favorite color is purple.” I sip my drink.

“Green,” Josh copies me.

“I like you,” I blurt, unable to help myself. “And I’m worried I’m going to screw it up, and it’s not like I can just ghost you. Again. We work together. If I fuck this up.” I wave a hand between us. “You’re still going to have to see me.”

In an instant, the drink is forgotten, and Josh has me in his arms, my ass pressed against the side of the table.

“You didn’t want to eat in the living room because we’d end up just like this, didn’t you?” His mouth finds its way against my throat, and his breath sends fire licking down my spine.

“I mean, we can do it right here, too.” I lick my lips and wrap my legs around his hips.

When his hard length presses against my core, I feel him grow even as the friction makes me wetter, ready for him.

“Here?” He nips my earlobe. “Or your bed?”

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