Page 49 of See You Sometime
“Then don’t. It’s as simple as that. Be honest, above all else. Talk. The talking will feel weird and awkward and uncomfortable sometimes, but do it. It gets easier the more you do it, I promise.”
Chapter Twelve
That week was sort of like a good kind of slow-motion torture. They saw each other Tuesday night at gaming, and Axel frequently sent sly smiles her way throughout the game, dampening her panties.
She was hoping to steal more than a quick peck from him, but Kyle had a friend over, and with two teen boys in the house, Skye didn’t want to do anything untoward around them.
Skye and Axel texted all week, but a project at work had him working late, so they didn’t get to go out together before Friday. It was that, or him risking having to work over the weekend to meet his project deadline.
She’d suffer through the waiting.
By the time he picked her up at home on Friday, she was nearly crawling out of her skin with anticipation. They had a great dinner, and she finally got him to let her pay for one for a change.
Even better, they’d established more ground rules for them, whatever this was, and agreed they wanted to see what would happen next.
They also agreed that if, at the end of the weekend, one or both of them didn’t really feel it, they’d back off and settle for being just good friends without it nuking their relationship totally.
Considering everything Skye had done in her adult life, she thought it was absofuckinglutely ridiculous that she felt as nervous as she did when they left the restaurant Friday night and drove back to Axel’s house.
I’ve known this guy for over twenty years. He’s not a serial killer.
Then again, it wasn’t like they’d been close during all those years apart. Being Facebook “friends” wasn’t like being friends in real life, either. She didn’t even know his favorite kind of music, or if he was some total whack-job who hated sushi or something.
No, scratch that, he did like sushi, she knew that much.
An entire lifetime had passed for both of them from the time they’d last “known” each other until they’d reconnected.
But it felt easy and right to rest her hand on his thigh as he drove, and even better when he covered her hand with his.
In a way she knew things hadn’t felt when they were kids.
That was about the only thing helping her not fall face-first into a full-blown freakout. Everythingfelteasy between them now. Conversations big or small, playing D&D, or talking about news.
They’d both voted on the same sides of political insanity over the years.
He liked dogsandcats. Barksley already loved the hell out of him, and he always took the time to pet the dogs—and her parents’ cat, when Dilbert would let him.
No desperate need to fill silences when one settled between them. Even those felt…easy.
Simple.
Fun.
After being so damn careful, after what she went through with her ex, she was ready to get a little crazy. They’d both paid their dues. They’d both been shafted after making what they’d thought was a sound decision about their heart.
Now, they’d recovered and were moving on toward whatever the next stage would bring them.
Wasn’t ittheirtime, finally, after all these years?
* * * *
Axel hoped he didn’t start hyperventilating and have to pull the car over.
That would be embarrassing.
Sure, they’d been kids in high school. They’d never fooled around together back then. He now knew a hell of a lot more than he did at that age—and felt a lot more neurotic about a goodly chunk of it—and yet in some ways he felt even more stupid.
He could never remember feeling “young.” Ironically, he thought maybe he understood even less now than he did back then in direct proportion to how much he knew.
