Page 34 of You Found Me in the Dark
I’m going to pretend I didn’t just picture that and want to drive to your house. Yeah, it’s cute because your name is a type of bird.
I let out a breathy laugh, biting the edge of my thumbnail, heart hammering so loud I swear I could hear it echoing off the walls.
Me
Okay, that’s really fucking cute, but I asked a serious question, though. How would you show me?
There was a pause. A longer one this time.
R
I’d start slow. Make you look at me the way you did in the kitchen. Then I’d touch you like I’ve been wanting to. Nothing rushed. Nothing half-measured. I want to feel every inch of you. I want to memorize every inch of yourbody.
My breath caught and my eyes widened.
R
I’d kiss you until you forgot every reason you ever doubted me. And I wouldn’t stop until you felt safe, wanted, and whole. God Wren, the things I wanted to do to you in your kitchen and my truck would’ve proved all of this.
I exhaled shakily and tossed the phone aside like it had burned me. But it only took thirty seconds before I snatched it back and typed:
Me
I wouldn’t have stopped you. I have been thinking about some stuff I’d like to do to you, too. I have a feeling your voice would sound hot telling me how pretty I looked on my knees. Damn, I hope no one ever sees these messages.
R
Fuck, Wren. You have no idea what that text just did to me. And no one will. This is ours.
Me
Good. Because I can’t stop smiling. And I don’t want to.
I didn’t get a reply for a while. But when it came, it was soft. Simple.
R
Sleep, Little Birdie. I’ll see you soon.
And with that, I finally let myself close my eyes. My phone was still in my hand, and his texts repeated in my mind.
22
REED
Iwoke up to sunlight stabbing through the blinds like it had a personal vendetta.
My neck hurt. My back hurt. My mouth was dry. And I was smiling like an idiot.
I blinked up at the ceiling of my room, already replaying every word Wren had texted me last night. The way she’d flirted back. The teasing. The “how would you show me?” that nearly made me throw my phone across the room in the best kind of agony. As Harper, my little sister would say, I was “giggling and kicking my feet”. I guess that’s the new way of saying, I had butterflies.
I groaned and dragged a hand down my face. I should’ve gone to sleep after I read the first text, “I miss you.”
But I didn’t. Couldn’t. Not when she opened that door. Not when I knew she would let me walk through it.
I reached for my phone, ignoring the dozen unread notifications from Dax’s late-night memes and a calendar reminder I’d already snoozed twice.
Nothing from her yet. She was probably still sleeping. Or with the girls again. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
