Deep End(69)

My mind slips to yesterday’s competition, my latest-but-probably-not-last failure, but I leash it back, forcing myself to stay in the moment, savor the comfortable silence that’s been stretching almost uninterrupted ever since we left his home .

I bite into my egg-and-cheese bagel, moaning like it’s being shot up my veins. I haven’t eaten anything since well before the meet. After, I just wasn’t sure I deserved food. Maybe this is what I need—to be harsher with myself, punish my body and brain for the things it cannot accomplish, train the weakness and the failure out of—

No. I’m not thinking about that now.

I focus on each bite. The rustling of the trees. Lukas’s steady presence. We exchange a few glances—me, smiling, and him inscrutable. When I finish my breakfast, he picks up his second bagel and holds it out to me.

“Oh, no, I—”

“Scarlett,” he says. Just a word. Not an order. Still, it contains so much: I know you’re still hungry. I’d rather you eat it. Make me happy. Be full. I have no clue how I can read all of it, but when I close my hand around the still-wrapped bagel, he looks so satisfied, I know I’m right.

I eat two-thirds, then hand him the rest. He scans my face, measuring, curious, and then accepts it and finishes in a single bite.

I cannot help but marvel how quiet and stoic Lukas can be when he’s not bossing me around. How relaxed I feel with him, content to just be silent. How many fewer words we exchange while sharing a meal than while having sex. That last thought coaxes a small laugh out of me.

“What?” he asks.

I shake my head. “So . . . does this”—I gesture between us—“fall under the umbrella of fika?”

“This is breakfast.”

“But we’re having coffee. And a snack.”

He frowns. “Still breakfast. Fika is midmorning.”

“Well, it’s nine thirty, and we usually wake up at five. ”

“Fika is between meals.”

“We are between meals—dinner last night and lunch later today. If you think about it, every meal is between other meals—”

“This is not fika,” he says, final. Arbitrary.

He might be getting mad. I might love it. “But why?”

“Because I say so.”

“So just because you’re Swedish, you get to decide—”

“Correct.”

I hide my smile into my knees. “I never get to use the only Swedish word I know. Just because you say so.”

He snorts a laugh, and mutters something under his breath—something that sounds a lot like troll.

“Hey, why do you keep calling me a—”

“I’ll teach you another.”

“Another what?”

“Swedish word.”

I give him an expectant look.

“Mysig.”

“Mysig,” I repeat slowly, and he chuckles. “What?”

“You really aren’t great at foreign languages, are you?” I glare. “Me-sig,” he says again. His smile tells me that my second attempt is no better. “Still sounds a bit like an intestinal parasite.”

“Hey,” I say mildly, “if you can’t handle me at my xenoglossophobic worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best. What’s m . . . that word?”

He waves his hand at something that encompasses us, the trees, this moment in time. “This is mysig.”

“But what does it mean?”

“I’m sure whatever website taught you fika will be happy to clarify that for you.”

“So mean.” I steal a long sip of his juice. The link between excellent sex and appetite must have a titanium core. “Did Jan get home okay?”

Lukas nods. “Asks me to send you his regards every time he texts—and he texts a lot.”

“Oh. Did you tell him that we . . . ?”

“He figured it out all by himself.”

“When?”

He shrugs. “About two and a half seconds into seeing the way I look at you, according to him.”

“Oh.” A hot flush hits my face. “I’m sorry for coming along. I didn’t mean to intrude on your brotherly time.”

He laughs. “Brotherly time?”

“Isn’t that what you people with siblings call it?”

“Maybe monks do?” We exchange a long, intimate, too-full glance. “I’m glad you joined us,” he adds eventually, quiet in the outdoor morning. My heart . . . it doesn’t skip, but tripping is involved.

“Yeah?”

“I like spending time with you.”

The beats completely unravel, one after the other. “Thanks,” I say, instead of what I’m actually thinking. Maybe we could be friends. Aside from the sex, I mean. I don’t have many. And you and I—we get along, right? Instead, I opt for the most milquetoast thing I can find. “I like hiking. Never get to go.”

“How come?”

“No one to do it with. I should go alone, but . . .” I shrug. “I’m going to ask Pen if she wants to join me sometimes.”

“She doesn’t enjoy it much.”

“Really?”

“Something about the bugs. She’s more of an indoor rock climber.”