Once I’m completely bandaged, Nathan sits back and positions the ice pack over my wounded knee. He’s frowning down at it.
“What is it?” I ask cautiously, afraid I’m bleeding out or something and I just can’t see it.
With my leg still in his lap, his index finger traces a soft line around the bandage. I can feel the reverence in his touch. “Nothing. It’s just…seeing your knee bandaged brings back memories.”
“Of my accident?”
He nods, still not looking at me. “I’ve never felt more terrified or helpless than I did that week.” His eyes snap to me. Heavy. Serious. Aching.
We rarely ever talk about that time in life—though I’m not sure why. It’s just something we avoid for reasons I don’t think either of us really know.
“I wanted to…I don’t know. When you told me ballet was over for you and you cried over the phone…” He sounds anguished. “Bree, I would have sold my soul to be able to get your dreams back for you in that moment.”
I smile at the hard edges of his jaw. The stern set of his brows hanging over his black eyes. His shoulders are rigid like he could plow through a mountain and knock it down, but the pressure of his finger lazily moving over my skin is a feather. A tender kiss.
It makes me want to reciprocate. To be just as vulnerable as his touch.
I lightly flick the lock of hair at the nape of his neck. “I’m glad you didn’t. Because…I like your soul.”
His finger stills and he looks up at me. Our eyes collide for two twisting, drawn-out breaths. I am scorching. My skin prickles from my head to the tips of my toes. Does he know how much his nearness affects me? Does he know I’m dying to dive through those beautiful eyes and see all his hidden thoughts? I need to know if there’s a chance he will ever love me like I love him.
Are we friends?
Or are we more?
My heart pounds more and more aggressively the longer we sit staring at one another. He doesn’t say anything. WHY?! Why won’t he speak? Do you like my soul too? I’d settle for a compliment on my shirt. A casual, That’s nice, your shorts are cute. Anything! Just say something please!
But the longer he takes, the more I wonder if he’s trying to formulate the perfect response to let me down easy. Your soul is okay, I guess. I’ve seen better.
I don’t give him a chance to answer—I panic. “Instagram!”
He frowns. “Huh?”
I scramble out of his lap, feeling my cuts all sting angrily when I bend my knees and retrieve my phone off the coffee table. “We haven’t posted a cutesy photo in a while, and that was part of the contract agreement, right? They wanted us to post couple stuff with their curated hashtags?”
“Yeah…”
“Let’s get to posting, then! We could stage a photo of us playing checkers or something? Do you own a checker board? Or cards? We could play cards…I’ll let you win. Why are you smiling like that?”
He chuckles almost under his breath. “Why are you blabbering?”
I stare right at him and blurt my truth in one long word vomit. “Because I told you I like your soul and you didn’t respond.”
Half of his mouth tilts into a smile. “I was going to, but you didn’t give me a chance.”
“You were taking too long. If we were on Jeopardy, the buzzer would have sounded way before I interjected.”
“I didn’t realize there was a time limit.”
“There is. There’s always a time limit. And now I know you hate my soul.”