Normal.
He was acting completely normal.
“Normal’s good, right?” she accidentally said out loud.
He shrugged. “Personally, I think it’s overrated.” Very briefly, so it might have been a mistake, he let his thigh and biceps touch hers. It felt like the very best hug. “Thanks for trusting me,” he said very softly.
She turned her head and met his gaze.
He fed her a bite of her own delicious stuffing. “Charlotte?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you need from me right now?”
“Um . . .” She eyed her half of his pie.
“Think bigger,” he said.
The truth was, she knew exactly what she needed. What she didn’t know was how to ask for it. She looked at his mouth, imagined it on hers, on all of her, erasing all her nightmares . . .
“Anything, Charlotte. All you have to do is say it.”
“Sometimes . . .” She had to lick her dry lips. “I think maybe I need a momentary diversion from my life.”
“Such as?”
She bit her lower lip. How did you tell the man you’d spent months and months secretly aching for—while turning him down—that you wanted to do just as her mom had suggested: jump his bones? “Maybe a hug,” she finally said.
He immediately stood up, and even though they were literally in the middle of the crowded cafeteria, he pulled her up as well, and right into his arms. And as they closed around her, not carefully, not gently, and definitely not like she was a piece of glass, she sighed out her tension and melted into him. Her past didn’t fade away—she was the only one with the power to make that happen—but the memories became . . . muted. For now, at least.
Mateo ducked a little to look into her eyes, a question in his own. Okay? he was asking.
“Yes.” More than. “I want . . .” She wanted them to be off duty. In his big, warm house. In his bed . . .
“Anything,” he said.
She stared at his mouth.
A low groan rumbled up from his chest. “Especially that.”
She nodded, then closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be a tease here, but . . . I really also like things the way they are.”
“You mean with you yelling at me every time I do something nice for you?”
Her eyes flew open and found him smiling at her.
He tugged on a strand of hair that had gotten loose from her ponytail. “Never apologize to me for telling me what you want. And as for what else you might want, we could tackle those things one at a time. On your schedule.”
“But what we have right now works for us.”
He nodded. “Agreed. But more would work too.”
She sucked in a breath. “Or ruin it.”
“Oh ye of little faith.”
“Not in you,” she said. “In me. Let’s face it, I’ve ruined every relationship I’ve attempted.”
“Sounds like you haven’t attempted very many. But in any case, it takes only one. The right one.”
She opened her mouth with absolutely no idea what she planned on saying, but just then they were both texted at the exact same time.
They looked at their phones.
“I have to go,” they said in sync and then laughed a little.
Charlotte gathered up her things, and he did the same. She gave him a smile and turned to walk off, but he caught her hand, waiting until she looked at him.