Page 64 of Lessons in Forgiving
Left me mortified and Henry speechless.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper-yelled right away. “I should’ve said—I don’t know why I didn’t say anything.”
I did know. But I had no idea how to explain that to him either.
Henry cleared his throat, eyes dancing across the room in thought. “Maybe it’s easier this way?”
I turned toward him so fast, I almost lost my footing. My eyes widened a little because he wasn’t really insinuating—“What way?”
“You know.” He cleared his throat. Finally looked at me. “If we wouldn’t have to explain you’re my ex-girlfriend every time someone asks who you are. Or that you’re writing a profile on me and the only reason you’re here is to meet other journalists.”
I blinked up at him. “You want me to—”
“Pretend you’re my girlfriend tonight.” But he corrected himself quickly. “Honestly, just don’t deny it when someone assumes as much. They all are, anyway. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Holding your arm?”
“Yes. Or my hand.”
I don’t know why my heart skipped a beat at the thought. “What else?” I asked. “Have I been doing for them to assume you’re my boyfriend?”
Henry’s lip twitched, and he leaned against one of the stone pillars behind him. My hand was in his now, had slipped from his biceps into his palm. “You do that thing. Where you look at me and drift off, and I can’t focus on the conversation I’m holding because I’m so busy trying to figure out what you’re thinking. If you’re thinking about me at all.”
“I—” Didn’t know what to say, cut myself off instead. Thanked God for the low light in the building because the blush on my cheeks was devilish.
“You move closer when someone you don’t know joins the conversation. I don’t think you notice, but I do. Your hip brushes mine or your chest presses into my arm, and I—” His eyes closed, like he was remembering exactly what that had felt like. The hand in mine twitched, pulled me closer, just enough for a single finger to trace along my waist, down to my hip. Where he lingered. “And I can’t think of anything but the way you used to feel underneath me.”
“Henry,” I gasped. The room was spinning, and it was the only thing I was still sure of.
“You also blush a lot. Whenever I squeeze your hand or look at you a little longer.”
Or when he told me, in a room full of important business partners and future colleagues, that he was thinking about the way he’d fucked me. And when I inevitably thought of the same thing now.
“So just keep doing more of that, and no one will even ask if we’re together.”
And I thought it would be harder. But once I’d focused on acting like a girlfriend, I realized I already laughed at his jokes, listened to his stories intently, squeezed his hand when someone mentioned Felix Pressley.
I didn’t know if I’d ever really stopped acting like his girlfriend around him.
I knew that I did not want to.
He introduced me to a journalist he knew, then a photographer from a renowned sports journal who was responsible for the pictures in their soccer column. Between his third and fourth glass of wine, he let slip the fact that their columnist might not make it another year.
Those were the only two conversations in which my hand had not been in Henry’s.
When we got back to the hotel it must’ve been past midnight. Henry hadn’t let go of me in the backseat of the car or when we’d walked through the sparsely staffed lobby to the elevators. His hand was firmly in mine, like he knew the spell of the night was about to wear off.
Like he might not want it to.
I nudged him into the elevator as soon as it opened with a smile, half a laugh. The way I would after we’d gotten home from one of his games or he’d picked me up from a shift at Daisy’s, and I couldn’t wait another second to be alone with him.
Only that we shouldn’t be tearing our clothes off each other, once the door slid close behind us now.
Henry looked at me like his thoughts had taken the same turn. Like he remembered the way my legs would wrap around his waist and his head would dip between my breasts, too.
Never mind that a hotel elevator wasn’t really all that private to begin with.
I shook my head to snap out of it, let myself fall against one of the mirrored walls with a relieved sigh. My eyes closed,but I knew Henry had followed. I could smell the pinewood cologne. His citrus shampoo. The bad ideas always lingering in his vicinity.
