Page 29 of Unexpectedly Wanted
“Yes,” I told him. “I mean, not all the time. But I do try to understand it. Even though I don’t care for women in a sexual way, I still want to understand what’s so appealing about it. They screech. And yell. And moan so loudly. It doesn’t even sound real. Are straight men’s egos so big that they believe it?”
“Mi,” he said, laughing so hard that he was doubled over. “Please stop. Oh my God. I don’t think I wanted to know that about you, and yet, it makes so much sense. You are one of a kind.”
“I am aware that people say that with a negative undertone. It’s not a good thing, Remy. And it kind of hurts my feelings that you said it when I told you something that I don’t go around telling people.”
He sobered at my words. The laughter died instantly, and he stood tall. There was something in his eyes as he stared into mine.
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing,” he told me, a very serious look on his face. “I mean it, though. You are one of a kind, and I think that’s a wonderful thing.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, dropping my gaze from his.
“Look at me,” he ordered, and I did. I couldn’t tell you why either. “The more I’m around you, the more things I find out about you that I like.”
“Why are we here?” I asked him. “Why are we doing this?” I needed to know the point of it.
The questions seemed to startle him. I knew this because his eyes blinked rapidly as his head jerked back. Beyond that, I had not one clue what was going on here.
“Because we have dinner with your parents tonight, and I thought it might be a good time to get to know each other. Maybe we can pull this whole thing off if I know little things about you. I can show them… hell, I don’t know…”
That made perfect sense. It was smart too.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this. But I’m not sure questions about ice cream and non-work pleasures are going to get us very far. We have to ask the hard stuff. I’ll go first.” I thought for a moment. I figured any question I asked him, I needed to be prepared to answer too. I had nothing to hide, but sometimes bringing that sort of stuff out of myself was complicated. Some questions, I just didn’t think I had answers to. And maybe I was a little worried that my answers wouldn’t be ones that people wanted to hear. “If you die tomorrow, what is the one thing you’d feel you missed out on?”
His head went back. Then his hand ran through his short hair as he seemed to contemplate my question. At least he wasn’t shutting me down right away.
“You go first,” he said to me after a minute.
“That I didn’t get the nerve up to go full-on Wiccan at Comic-Con.” He was my favorite superhero.
Remy stared at me as if he couldn’t understand what I’d said. I hadn’t been speaking another language, I knew that. Or something other than the four he was fluent in. Yes, just another thing Remy had over me. His mouth moved like it was trying to form words, but nothing came out. He took in a deep breath and shook his head, then tried again. But it was like he didn’t know what he was attempting to say.
“I’m sorry, what? Wiccan? Like you want to go to Comic-Con and cast spells. I’m lost.”
“Look it up,” I told him, motioning to where his phone sat on the counter beside him. “Billy Kaplan. A.k.a. Wiccan. My biggest and longest teenage crush. Part of the Young Avengers. Married to Hulkling. Honestly, I kind of had a thing for both of them, even though I’m not usually into green.”
“Oh, so is that your type?” he asked, scrolling through what I assumed were images of the superhero with dark hair and a cool costume. “He’s cute. I guess I can see it.”
Curiosity got the better of me and I moved until we were standing shoulder-to-shoulder.
“It’s the cape,” I said, pointing at one of the newer renditions of him.
“So if you were him, that would make me this green dude, right?” He looked over at me and raised a brow.
“I mean… if I got up the courage to actually wear a Wiccan costume to Comic-Con and you wanted to accompany me for whatever reason…” The idea of us going dressed like the couple wasn’t one I was against. If he were with me, I might have the nerve to actually go through with it. “And you wanted to go as, like, a couple thing, then yeah. But I’m not sure why you’re even asking something like that since the probability that we would actually go to Comic-Con together is nil. Never mind the fact that you’d be down for doing something ridiculously cheesy like go as Hulkling to my Wiccan. That’s a lot of green makeup, like, everywhere.”
He laughed. I blinked at him. He slung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to his body. I continued to blink at him.
What was even happening right now?
His fingers worked over the screen again and I watched until a menu popped up for the restaurant we were going to tonight.
“Look through that. Tell me what you’d order. I’d like to have an idea when we get there, so I don’t seem like an asshole for being clueless,” he told me, then handed over his phone and moved away to check on the bread.
There was something about the loss of him and the closeness we had that left a small part of me feeling empty inside. I figured it was because I hadn’t had a lot of human contact in my life, and perhaps I craved it more than I was even aware of.
There wasn’t a lot on the menu that looked appealing to me.
So I said, “Ponzu salmon.” When I didn’t feel sold on the sides, I added, “No rice. The pimento mac and cheese, instead. And I’d have to know what the seasonal veggie mix included. I don’t like zucchini. So if that’s in it, I’d probably want the asparagus instead. Though, I’m not sure about the truffle drizzle.” I paused. “I suppose I could try it.” I shrugged.
