“What?”
“You said you’d be right back,” he accuses, leaning back until I can see the lines of his face in the light from the bar. He frowns down at me. “You didn’t come right back.”
“I got caught up. Everyone wanted—“
“You were laughing,” he cuts off abruptly. “Dancing.” He swallows hard. “You aren’t like that with me.”
His hands flex at my hips and he takes a step back, leaving me propped up against the wall. I feel the two inches of space between us like a shove to the chest.
“I smile,” I start to say. “Beckett, I laugh with you all the time—“
He shakes his head. “It’s not the same. Not like when we were in Maine.”
He must have had more to drink than I thought. I glance out at the crowded bar and can barely make out the table we were sitting at—a wide collection of glasses haphazardly stacked next to empty food baskets.
“Sorry,” he snips, not sounding sorry in the slightest. His voice is grit and gravel and shades of possession, eyes heated to match. He takes a step forward and props his hand by my side. I am flat against the wall again, Beckett everywhere around me. “I forgot we don’t talk about it. I forgot I’m supposed to pretend like I don’t know exactly what you taste like.”
The image that blinks to life is immediate. Beckett on his knees at the edge of the bed, hand splayed low against my belly to hold me still. His nose at my hip and my thighs pressing at his ears, my foot drumming between his shoulder blades.
My entire body shivers, a forceful pulse pounding once right at the base of my throat.
“Beckett,” I say, a little bit dazed. His name lingers in the space between us. We don’t talk about it, he’s right, but I thought that was what he wanted. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not enough,” he says, his eyes intent on my face. “Cause I still think about kissing you all the damn time.”
I let that confession press against me, the words ringing in my ears despite the loud noise of the bar. I hold his gaze and blink as he stares right back. He pushes off the wall with a sigh, his hand through his hair.
“I need a beer,” he tells me.
I loop my fingers around his wrist. “I think you’ve had enough.” I glance towards the end of the hall and the door with EXIT marked in blinking red letters above. “I’m gonna drive us home. You want to say bye to your family?”
He shakes his head, muttering something about texting them later. He twists his arm out of my grip and straightens with a stumble. I slip my arm around his waist and his hand finds my shoulder, head tipping until his flower crown brushes my forehead.
“Sorry,” he says, his bottom lip against the shell of my ear. His voice is still that rough scratch that I like way too much. “I know I’m being an asshole.”
I pat his back through the thick material of his flannel. “Let’s just go home.”
As soon as we step outside the door into the stillness and silence of a mostly abandoned street, Beckett lets out a heaving, gusting sigh. He sounds like he just finished a run, lungs burning and legs twitching. Aching, blissful relief.
I keep my arm around his waist, guiding us to his truck parked two blocks over, right behind the cafe. He’s already got his box of shortbread cookies in the passenger seat and he’s careful to place them on his lap when he slips into the car.
It takes me a second to orient myself in the driver’s seat, everything feeling a little too big. Beckett snickers as my hands hover over the steering wheel, trying to find a position in the seat that doesn’t feel like I’m operating a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
“What?” I ask. I like him like this. Messy hair. Flower crown. A grin that curves his bottom lip beautifully.
“You make a cute face when you’re frustrated,” he tells me, letting his head drop back against the seat. “Nose scrunches.”
I look over at him in the passenger seat, splayed out as much as he can be in the cab of the truck. His knee is tucked up against the window and his arms are loose, face relaxed. I put the truck into drive and ease us out of the space, rumbling down the road that will take us back to the farm.
It’s nothing but the growl of the engine and the wind licking at the windows as we head back, Beckett’s gentle and easy breathing. I don’t know what to say to him, no idea how to respond to the things he said in the bar.
Cause I still think about kissing you all the damn time.
I had no idea. I sneak another glance at him from the corner of my eye, my hands flexing on the wheel.
“I don’t like noise,” Beckett announces as we maneuver our way out of town. “It was loud tonight. At the bar.”
“I know.”
Beckett doesn’t have a television in his house, doesn’t listen to music while he putters away in his greenhouse. He flinches when he enters a room and people are talking too loud, his head tilting slightly to the side. It’s like he’s trying to muffle the sound without being obvious about it. He shifts in his seat until his shoulder is pressed to the back of it, his elbow on the center console and his chin in his hand.
“I have earmuffs,” he tells me, an earnest expression on his face. I glance at him and then back to the road. I want this version of him in my memory always. Cornfields flashing by the windows, magnolia leaves in his hair. Eyes hooded but glowing, his knuckles resting under his chin.
Handing me his secrets like he wants me to hold them for him.
Nova’s question at the table makes sense now. “Okay.”
We drift into silence again. He rearranges himself until he’s staring out the window.
“You’re not asking me questions,” he mumbles after a few minutes, a little bit petulant, his fist on his knee.
“I thought you didn’t like my questions.” I swipe at the turn signal with the side of my hand even though there isn’t another soul for miles. “Plus, you’ve been drinking. That’s an unfair advantage.”
He huffs, a grumble under his breath I don’t quite catch. The pause drags on and then he quietly says, “I like your questions.”
I bite my lip against my smile. “Okay.”
“I know you know more words than that.”
I do. I do know more words than that. But the truth is, I’m struggling to restrain myself. This adorable, open version he’s showing me right now is—it’s a lot for me to handle. I want to pull over onto the shoulder of the road and throw the truck into park. I want to climb over the console and slip onto his lap. I want to fist my hands in his flannel and guide his mouth to mine, kiss him until he’s breathless and then drive him home and tuck him into bed.
All this time he’s been wanting me, I’ve been wanting him, too.
“We’ll talk tomorrow morning, once you sleep this off.”
“About what I said at the bar?”
I nod. “Yeah, about what you said at the bar.”
Cause I still think about kissing you all the damn time.
If he still feels that way in the morning, we’ll have a few other things to talk about. I follow the lanterns that lead to his cabin.
“I meant it,” he says.