Page 63 of The Catch

She shook her head.

“Good. Let’s go to bed.”

“Fuck, I needed to do that.” Josh groaned as he slid off of her and flopped face down in the pillow.

Cat laughed at his confession. He’d given up on trying to be more eloquent when he realized she liked reducing him to a caveman. She scooted closer to drape an arm over his back, and he turned his head to look at her. Her skin was rosy from the warm light of the lamp and the way he’d just made her come. She stroked her fingers up and down his back tenderly, giving him a self-satisfied smirk. She always seemed to know when he’d had a particularly long day that needed to end with being buried inside her. Unfortunately, besides the occasional mid-week sleepover when he had a meeting in the city, they were still getting by on weekends.

He reached out to toy with her hair, lifting the heavy waves and letting them cascade off of his fingers and pool onto the pillow. He’d been waiting all week to be here, surrounded by everything Catia.

“There was no way I wasn’t coming here tonight, Cat.” His eyelids were demanding to close, but his sated state left him flooded with the desire to tell her how much his body missed her on the nights they slept apart, how he wasn’t sure he could make it another week when he got in his car to go home on Sunday. “I don’t care how exhausted I am. If it’s a choice between sleeping alone or sleeping next to you, I’m gonna make the drive.”

Her eyes had fallen shut, and her fingers had moved to a slow crawl. A slight hum of agreement slipped from her lazy smile, urging him on.

“I know it’s only an hour, and I’d drive any distance to get to you, but maybe we should think about skipping all that.” He pushed off of the pillow and propped his head on his hand. His thoughts were flowing unchecked from his brain to his mouth now, but it was something he’d been thinking about for a while. Since Emma’s wedding, when he’d told her time meant nothing. Two months, five months, a year. Who was to say what was right? He’d spent ten years with Sarah all told, and he’d never felt the kind of passion he felt for Cat. The need to be around her, to soak her up. The way she made him feel nervous and confident all at once. The way she lit up a room and warmed him from the inside out when she smiled at him. Things were good, but he was greedy. He was hung up on her and needed more. “We could have nights like this every night, Cat. Instead of missing each other for five out of the seven.” He pressed his mouth to her shoulder and breathed. “You should move in with me.”

Cat’s eyes blinked open, her brow knitting as if she wasn’t sure if she’d dreamed his question. The seconds got more and more uncomfortable as she parted her lips then clamped them shut, once, twice, before pulling her bottom between her teeth and looking at him pitifully. “Josh,” she whispered after a few moments, offering him a weak smile. “Baby, let’s get some sleep.”

She kissed him with a finality that landed in his gut like a punch, then she rolled away to switch off the light. The sudden darkness forced his eyes to close, but the prospect of sleep had completely disappeared.

A dull ache of self-pity, the kind he didn’t usually allow himself, bucked at him from the pit of his stomach. He should have known. Hedidknow. He’d just run headlong into a wall he was fully aware existed. He’d felt it from the beginning, that gentle counterpressure that she always applied whenever he pulled them forward. At first, it was cute, the way she eyed him with suspicion when he professed with utter certainty that this thing with her was it for him, or the bashfulness that overtook her willful demeanor whenever her friends called her out for the way she looked at him. Those looks were what kept him content to let her stroll along behind him, knowing she would meet him where they were headed. But this time, he saw something different. This was the first time her pushback had been strong enough to knock him down; the first time she’d pulled away from him, and he wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to catch up.

Twenty-three

Cat was already showered anddressed by the time Josh got up the next morning. She was used to rising early every day for work and couldn’t break the habit. She’d discovered early on that, depending on what kind of night they’d had, Josh could just as easily wake at sunrise or sleep well past breakfast. It was one of the perks of working for himself.

That morning he’d split the difference, wandering into her kitchen at eight a.m. He’d put on a pair of jeans, but he still held his t-shirt in his hand as he padded toward her. She took in his puffy eyes and sleep-tossed hair and almost had a complete change of heart at the first sight of him. The man wore mornings well.

She needed to be stronger than that, though. Being taken by him in this way is what landed her here, teetering on the edge of who she promised she wouldn’t become again.

“Want some breakfast?” she asked casually, holding up a small frying pan filled with egg whites and pico de gallo.

“Sure.” A small smile played on his face as he acknowledged she was teasing him. “If you make it right,” he said.

She smiled back. Maybe the heavy conversation that was simmering could somehow just evaporate into their normal easy banter. He would apologize for talking crazy, and she would laugh it off. They could go back to the same page and set up camp, try to stay there for a few more months, years.

“This one is mine.” She pointed to a block of cheddar cheese she’d set aside. “I’ll make yours the way you like it.”

“Thank you.” He dropped a kiss on her cheek before taking a seat at the breakfast nook nestled in front of a tall window that looked out over the heart of the city. She watched him gazing out at the tall buildings stabbing the horizon, hard steel slicing through the soft blue winter sky, and he suddenly looked oddly out of place in this world she’d built for herself.

Maybe he felt it too. Despite his smile, his lips were tentative against her skin, distant. Her punishment for not just answering his question the night before, letting it simmer.

She’d spent the night dancing with the idea in her head, Josh’s words and Maria’s taking turns cutting in to lead a sort of angry Tango with her thoughts. If there were a cartoon animation of her reaction, it would be her eyes popping out of her head, little heart bubbles floating up to the sky. She’d look up at them dreamily, and a huge anvil would fall, crushing her for being so stupid. She was finally living the life she’d put on hold for Micah after clawing her way here alone, two years later than she should have arrived. Moving in with Josh would mean scrapping all of that for him. It was too familiar.

“Josh,” she said, interrupting what looked like his own rumination on the matter. “Last night… you weren’t serious, right? About me moving in with you.” She kept her back to him, afraid to watch his reaction. She knew he was serious. He didn’t make off-the-cuff remarks. But she wanted to give him an out, an opportunity to agree to the absurdity of trying to tie their worlds together so soon.

He wouldn’t take the easy way out, though. That wasn’t him either. “I was serious,” he said simply. “But I guess you feel differently about it.”

Cat flipped her omelet out onto a plate and got to work assembling his. She could feel him staring, but now was not the time to get lost in that intense gaze of his. “It just seems a bit illogical.”

“Illogical? You sound like you’re talking about a math problem, Cat.” He gave her a small chuckle, and she found herself bristling at the sound. His confidence turned her on when he was using it to charm her, but this was the first time they had been at odds. All of a sudden, it wasn’t so endearing.

“Yes, illogical,” she repeated. “That’s a giant leap of faith after five months.”

“We’ve already talked about this, Cat. Look, we’re both old enough and experienced enough to know when something’s right. I love you. You know this is more than a weekend thing.”

“Josh,” she sighed. “You know I love you too, and I miss you when we’re apart, but I have a whole life here.”

“I have a life, too, and I want it to include you.” He leaned back in his chair, gesturing casually with his hand as if he was explaining something as simple as the rainfall in the spring. “This is going somewhere. Why should we wait to have it?”

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