Page 84 of Maid For Each Other

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Vibes

Abi

I could tell he was interested in more.

I wasn’t thinking that in a cocky way, like I thought THE Declan Powell wanted to wife me up, but we had good chemistry and it felt like he wanted to explore it.

Which terrified me.

Because I felt all the same chemistry pulls,dear God so much, and I was being swallowed by the urge to absolutely throw myself into it and not even worry about coming up for air.

But I knew my heart couldn’t take him moving on. I knew my heart couldn’t take him losing interest. It’d be bad enough to eventually lose my friend Dex, but the idea of completely falling into a relationship with him, something deeper, much more passionate—and losingthat?

It was too much for me.

“Sorry, Dexxie,” I said, injecting a teasing tone into my voice. “I get what you’re saying, but I absolutely donotthink we shoulddo that. I like you a lot, but I have no desire to be in a relationship with anyone right now. So if we do this and find we’re interested in more, that’s a big fat fail because I don’t want to be. So I’d prefer we just stick to being friends.”

“Okay,” he said, his jaw flexing and unflexing as he just watched me for a moment. My heart was in my throat until he said, “Well, if at any time you start to change your mind, you let me know.”

“I will,” I said, downing the rest of my wine. It was intoxicating, knowing this beautiful man would be interested in exploring something with me.

That was some heady shit.

Some heady shit I definitely could not handle.

We walked around the city after dinner, Declan totally humoring me and letting me walk for hours. I was obsessed with the way Manhattan reallywasthe city that never sleeps. No matter what time it was, there were people everywhere and I didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

And instead of being bored, like a local who didn’t understand my obsession, he seemed into it, just like me.

And he opened up like anactualfriend, telling ridiculous stories and laughing at mine.

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” he said, outraged for me after I told him a long, rambling tale about the time my mom thought it was a good idea for us to move in with the mother of a guy she was dating when I was twelve. “The old lady was a stranger, right?”

“Yes,” I said, shaking my head. “And she had these birds that terrified me, in addition to making me sneeze twenty-four-seven.I’m fairly certain my teachers thought I had a monthlong cold because of my red nose and swollen eyes.”

“You only stayed there for a month?”

“A month exactly,” I said, shaking my head at the memory. “Thank heaven for those god-awful birds or we might never have left.”

He laughed. “So the allergies worked for good when it came to your mom’s dating life?”

“Sometimes,” I said, but then Doug’s face popped into my head and I grimaced.

“Oh, dear God, what’d I say?” he said, bumping my hip with his and sliding his fingers through mine.

I looked at him, surprised that he was holding my hand, and he gave me the kindest smile. “Why do you look so sad now, Mariano?”

I gave my head a little shake. “No, it’s a pathetic little story.”

“Tell me,” he said softly, looking at me like he really wanted to know. “Unless it’s too much for you and still hurts.”

That made something in my chest swell, or maybe grow, because what hurt a little bit was when he was so careful with me.

“Okay, so my mom dated this guy named Doug, right?” I said, clearing my throat and looking down the block in front of me, not at his face. “He wasperfect. Good-looking, but more than that, he had a good job and was so incredibly nice to me. Like, he planted hydrangeas on his patio just because he knew I wasn’t allergic to them. He wasthatkind of nice, right?”

“Right,” he said, squeezing his fingers tighter between mine.

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