Page 31 of Tailored for Them

Violet grinned, “Do you think it’s going to go anywhere?”

I shrugged.

The conversation paused while everyone else in the room laughed at another dry delivery from the characters in the movie. Once everyone had settled again, Violet turned to me.

“If it does turn into anything, let me know,” Violet nudged me with her shoulder, “I want to keep up with all the gossip down here.”

I grinned and nodded at her, “For sure.”

It wasn’t until everyone was focused back on the movie, and Mary was sound asleep on Jamie’s lap, that I felt my phone buzz in my pocket.

Quietly tugging my phone out to check the notification, I felt a swarm of butterflies in my stomach from seeing the name lit up on my phone.

Taylor: I want to kiss you again.

Chapter Nine

TAYLOR

“Honey, I’m home!”I called into the entryway of my parents’ house.

As I slipped my sneakers off, I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if Nicole had texted me back yet.

She hadn’t.

It had been a whole day at this point.

Served me right, considering I also waited about a day to text her back that one time.

But this was different, because I was reaching out to her again after our very clear nothing-else-is-happening-here hookup. Even though she gave me permission to call her again. I mean, technically I texted her, but the intention was the same, wasn’t it?

Maybe she felt put on the spot when I asked, and she just said yes to be nice?

When I left her apartment, I had every intention of waiting a few days before reaching out to her again. I had a feeling that Nicole was much shyer than I was and wouldn’t reach out to me first. However, the next day, as I cleaned my apartment and went about my regular weekend routine, I realized that I was still waiting for her to text me.

Eagerly waiting.

Hopeful that she’d want to reach out to me, too.

I kept checking my phone, ignoring the notifications on a couple of dating apps I cycled through, ignoring the texts from my friends’ group chat, trying to manifest that my phone was going to light up with Nicole texting me that she wanted me again.

I sat with those feelings for a bit, wondering if I was crossing some sort of boundary by wanting to hook up with her again. Or if I created some unrealistic, unfair fantasy where Nicole reached out to me first.

Her words from the day before kept playing in my mind: “I’m not sure what’s next,” and “I don’t know the protocol.”

Perhaps it was thewayshe said it.

Inexperienced with hookup culture, while knowing that I was very experienced in hookup culture.

I mean, Leo said it himself. I could be a greatreboundfor her. Everyone around me knew how I operated, so it made sense that Nicole would assume I wanted to get mine and move on in a reasonable amount of time.

What if…that wasn’t all I wanted, though?

Obviously, I wanted to hook up with Nicole again. She was a beautiful woman, with a body that made me want to drool. Soft curves that felt amazing in my hands, a sweet smile that I wanted to kiss as much as I could, the tattoos on her arm that I wanted to study with uninterrupted intensity.

If Nicole was treating this like a strict hook-up with no strings attached, perhaps I needed to be the one to show her that I was okay with exploring the concept of strings.

Maybe, I don’t know, one or two strings.

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