Page 25 of Bad At Love

Swallowing a wave of longing, he shrugged. How were they going to survive the week with this tension strumming between them?

Moving closer, she lifted his coffee cup to her mouth and took a sip, her fingers cold on his skin. A drop of foam stuck to the bow of her upper lip before she licked it away. “Hmmm...” she said, smacking her lips. “Wait, that’s oat milk.”

“You ruined cow’s milk for me,” he said, still struggling to process her easy demeanor. Then there was her admission that she’d changed her flight. To coincide with his? “TJ won’t stop laughing at me when I ask him to pick up oat milk with the week’s groceries.”

Hooking her arm through his, she shuffled them forward. Their strides matched and he wondered if their heartbeats would sync up if she held him any closer. Could she tell that the stupid organ flipped out for her?

“TJ thinks if he tries anything that’s not mainstream, his balls might fall off.”

For the first time in weeks, he laughed. Hearing about his brother’s balls from her lips should have been strange. Instead, it returned them to their default. A surge of affection laced with gratitude rushed through him. He’d missed the simple comfort of being so easy with her.

“How’s Maggie?” she said, returning his cup to him after wiping the lipstick smudge from its rim.

She’d done this before too—grabbed his coffee, took a bite of his sandwich, fixed his tie, fell asleep with her head on his shoulder and yet, her actions felt different today. Like there was a whiff of possessiveness to it.

“Did you meet her new roommates and give them the big brother lecture? Did you demand a detailed tour of all her hang-outs to make sure they are safe? What did you two do Christmas morning?”

“That’s a lot of questions,” he quipped, not meeting her eyes. Realizing that, for the first time in years, he had to filter his thoughts before speaking with her. It made him feel like he was play-acting in his own life. “Maggie barely had any time for me.” Which was an outright lie. He’d avoided her because his clever sister would have figured out that he was nursing heartbreak in two seconds flat. Neither had he wanted her curious about his new plans.

“What did you do then?” Chaaru persisted, a probing glint in her eyes.

“Hung out with some friends,” he said.

Away from the accounting firm he’d inherited from his parents,andChaaru, he had been able to take stock of his life. And he hadn’t liked what he’d seen. It wasn’t just this stalemate in their relationship that was the problem.

Somewhere in the last decade, he’d gotten stuck in a rut. Sexual encounters with women who held the same apathy for change as him, managing the family’s accounting firm, even down to ordering the same food from the same restaurant on a weeknight.

He was stuck in patterns he’d developed as a twenty-one-year-old coping with the sudden loss of his parents and the overwhelming responsibility of his much younger siblings. If not for Chaaru urging him, he wouldn’t have started dating in the last couple of years.

He grappled with this new realization as she chatted away about Mona and Dom’s celebrations, Kaasi’s interview with another company, and other mundane stuff she said she’d filed away to share with him. She told him about a new client—a household with two big IT incomes, who’d booked her concierge housekeeping services exclusively for eighteen months at an extremely profitable rate.

He congratulated her, frustrated by his own passivity for so long. When had he stopped taking chances in life? Why had he decided he preferred safe and easy over living fully?

“Do you remember we told Mona we’d share a room at the resort all those months ago?” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers.

He stumbled so badly that coffee splashed over his fingers and his chest. Luckily, it was lukewarm. “We did what?” he nearly screamed.

The prospect of sharing a room with her—and everything that would entail—set his body and mind off at extreme odds. One rejoiced at all the possibilities while the other was drowning in panic.

“That t-shirt looks good on you,” Chaaru said, her gaze clinging to his chest.

He grinned. “You bought it for me at that food festival.”

“I remember.” With a sigh, she dug in her backpack and pulled out a wet tissue. The tip of her tongue poking at her upper lip, she rubbed at the stain, her long, pink-tipped fingers inching close to the band of his black slacks.

Desire revved through him, the muscles in his stomach bunching. “That’s good,” he bit out, drawing her hand away from drifting.

He forced himself to take deep breaths while she threw the tissue into the trash. Her sundress hugged her ass, the cheeks doing a tango with each step she took. God, they were in the middle of an airport and he had a cock-stand.

“What were you saying?” he prompted when she turned, looking away too late.

She took his arm again, and they stepped out through the double doors into the busy thoroughfare outside.

Humid, cigar-scented air hit them, while tall palms swayed in the breeze. It was nearing dusk, but in the distance, he could see blue waves rippling with pink splashes of the sky.

They lined up in front of the taxi counter.

“When Mona was making reservations at the resort all those months ago,” Chaaru said, her words a little muffled as she dug through her bag, “we both agreed that we didn’t want to bring some rando. Especially, since the rest of the party is all good friends. Remember?”

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