Page 68 of Hardcore Vanilla
Carefully, she put down her fork, drawing in her defenses and really wishing he wasn’t going to do this at brunch. What was wrong with the trip back home? Or a simple text message after they’d parted?
Yeah, she’d still be mad – especially if he’d gone the text message route after behaving like everything was normal – but at least she’d be able to express her feelings. Here, she was trapped unless she wanted to make a scene. She wondered if he was counting on that… If he was, he might be disappointed considering what he had to say.
Piss her off enough and Sharon wouldn’t care atallabout making a scene in front of her family and everyone else who was currently having breakfast.
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the words. “What’s up?”
“I want us to be in a relationship.”
Sharon blinked.
Pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth.
Waited for the punch line.
Considered checking her ears to see if her hearing was working – a definite concern because it seemed like all the conversations around them had suddenly turned to white noise.
“I’m sorry, what?” she asked finally as Jake just sat there, staring back at her, that same blank expression on his face. She couldn’t even tell what he was thinking by looking in his eyes.
It didn’tlooklike he was kidding.
Okay, actually, if anything he looked nervous.
Which… holy fuck…
“I think we should date. Exclusively.” He nodded firmly, his shoulders straightening as if he was just now coming to the decision. “Boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“I…” Her voice trailed off as her mind tried to catch up with what was happening. “You realize there’s a really good chance we’re going to kill each other, right?”
A hint of a smile turned up one side of his mouth and a little bit of sparkle appeared in his eyes. “I’m pretty sure we can find other ways to work out our tension.”
“My family isn’t going to get any less crazy and I don’t ever foresee getting along with them any better than I do now.”
“As long as you get along with my family, or at least attempt to, it doesn’t bother me,” he said calmly.
Sharon almost snorted. Sometimes she thought she could get along with anyone’s family other than her own. Although, she could understand why he’d ask her to at least try. When she’d met him, she’d immediately jumped tonottrying because she’d felt like he disapproved of her and so she’d gone out of her way encourage that. But she really did make more of an effort for most people.
“So… you’re asking me to check yes or no?” she joked.
******
“Pretty much,” Jake replied, tapping his finger against his silverware nervously.
He’d caught her off guard, that much was apparent. Shocking her hadn’t been quite as much fun as it usually was because he really cared about her answer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this nervous asking a woman out.
Then again, he couldn’t really remember the last time he’d been this uncertain of a woman’s answer.
With Sharon, it could go either way. Fuck buddies were one thing, even exclusive fuck buddies, even exclusive fuck buddies that all their friends knew about. Actually doing the relationship thing? That was a whole other ball game. There was still a part of his brain that didn’t think they could make it work, but…
They’d basically been in a relationship for weeks now, just without the title.
They spent most nights together. Not just having sex but hanging out. They got along pretty well for the most part. Sure, there were a lot of differences in their upbringing, but they had a lot in common. Sharon was more social than he was, but since she was social with the people who were also his friends, he was comfortable with that. They were exclusive. They’d gone to a wedding together. Hell, they’d even worked their way through their first fight.
The only thing they hadn’t done was go out on actual dates. They’d kind of skipped straight into the relationship.
He didn’t have any problem with that. He just wanted the relationship to continue when they got home. He didn’t want things to keep going as they had been, only to be blindsided one day by Sharon telling him that she’d found someone she wanted to date.
No. He wanted to lock it down, make things official, and give this a real try.
