Page 22 of The Twelve-Hour Rule
I arch a brow and he grins in response. His voice is gravelly still, and I’m picturing everything we did last night all over again—his groans, the sounds he made when he came.
“Right. We did this last night. Thirty-eight. So fucking hot.”
I roll my eyes, but my mouth betrays me. “You’re such a flatterer.”
“I’m consistent,” he says, then nudges my knee with his. “You hungry?”
“Not yet.” I hook my ankle over his calf and settle again. The ceiling fan ticks and somewhere, the birds caw like a cat asking for food. “Can we stay like this for a bit?”
He doesn’t answer, just tightens his arm and presses his chin into my hair. The weight of him is oddly calming. My phone vibrates somewhere in the room and neither of us moves to find it.
“Tell me something about yourself,” he says after a while.
I’ve had more sex with this man than actual conversations, and he barely knows my name. If I’m staying a few extra days, maybe I should give him something—anything—to hold on to.
I watch the stripe of light on the wall creep across a framed print of palm leaves. My throat feels stubborn for a second.
“You’re going to laugh.”
Ben is quiet. He rubs his thumb once under my ribs like he’s drawing a line there. “I won’t.”
“Have you ever just… It’s so stupid,” I say.
I let my fingers trace one of the lines of ink along his forearm—thin leaves running towards his wrist.
“This thing, this big, bold, beautiful love everyone talks about,” I say, exploring more of his body. I’m purposely avoiding his gaze, but I feel his eyes on me, watching me closely. I feel like my chest is about to crack open and I’m giving him all my secrets, and it’s strange, after years of keeping so many thingsto myself, even when I was married and supposed to share that with someone. “It’s exhausting, looking for it.”
He exhales. It lands at my temple, warm. “You still want that?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. I can hear the vulnerability in my voice. The way it comes out almost like I’m resigned. I shouldn’t be hoarding it. I had it once, or so I thought, and I shouldn’t be selfish and continue to look for it. Especially not at my age, when my life is fulfilled and everything else feels like it’s extra, just adding sparkle to an already good thing I have going. “And it sounds weird because I already had it once.”
He hums, the sound low and thoughtful, his fingers tracing lazy circles on my bare skin. The touch is soft, almost absentminded. It feels like he’s agreeing without needing to say the words.
“Being single is peaceful until you realize all you want is someone who is constantly looking for you in a crowd.”
The room settles. The light makes it to the floorboards and warms the space between us. It would be very easy to believe this is our life. Coffee on the balcony. Lazy evenings. Early-morning confessions.
“I think I’m built for that,” he says, a little embarrassed. His eyes are closed now, almost like this is the only way he can get the words out. “I’m so good at showing up. I’m less good at pretending not to care. I guess I’m needy?”
Something in my chest twists at the way he says it. As if he’s simply repeating the words he’s heard over and over again. Who knows how many people have told him that.
“Room service?” he says after a while of us laying in silence side by side.
“Yes,” I say. “And fruit. And those little pastries no one ever finishes. They’re like my emotional support vacation breakfast.”
He shifts to reach the phone on the nightstand. His arm slides off my waist and the bed cools immediately. I stare at the ceiling while he orders, his voice soft and unhurried. When he hangs up, he finds me again, his palm returning to where it was like it memorized the way from just the hours we’ve spent together.
“You okay?”
”Mhmm,” I say, automatically.
“Liar.”
I tilt my face up and kiss the spot where his jaw meets his ear. “Stop being so perceptive.”
“No promises.”
A cart rattles down the hall fifteen minutes later. He throws on a T-shirt and opens the door while I find something to put on from the pile of clothes on the floor. We take everything outside—coffee, bowls of papaya and mango and pineapple, the pastries that look better than they taste, a plate of eggs he claims he needs “for balance.”
