Tyler

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She says yes.

Hell fucking yeah.

She adds just lunch, and I send her a GIF of a cartwheeling eggplant, because I understand what she needs—just lunch. She needs to know that the heat of the mailroom encounter isn’t all we still have in common. The passion between us is incontrovertible, but she wants to know we’re more than that.

Over a pesto artichoke sandwich and fries at a sidewalk café in the Eighties, she gives me the details of her night out dancing with her friends.

“We could have entered a dance marathon, it seemed.”

“Did you do the Macarena?”

“All night long.”

“How about a conga line?” I ask, demonstrating the moves in my chair.

She nods. “And then we did a square dance.”

“Hope you wore your cowgirl boots.”

She shakes her head. “I wore silver heels,” she says, with a strangely shy little smile. Then she’s not so shy when she meets my eyes and says, “And I thought of you.”

Images flash before me that make my throat dry. I groan, then lean across the plate that holds my chicken sandwich and tell her in a rough voice, “I like hearing that. I thought of you last night, too, and then I did a lot more than think. And I’m also sure you’d look hot in cowgirl boots.”

The next day I get my reward.

She texts me a location for breakfast, and when I meet her there, she’s got on a short jean skirt, a red checked short-sleeve blouse, and cowgirl boots.

“Fuck me now,” I mumble as I give her a kiss on the cheek.

She laughs. “Maybe not right now . . .”

“But later?”

She shrugs, but the gesture comes complete with a wink that says we’ll see.

We sit down and I order eggs, but no bacon.

After the waiter leaves, Delaney tips her forehead in my direction. “No bacon?” She stretches across the table and places the back of her hand on my forehead. “You’re not feeling so hot today?”

I laugh. “Nope. I feel great. Just wanted to prove I can abstain.”

“Prove to whom?”

I point at the gorgeous woman sitting across from me. Her blond hair is swept up in a high ponytail, and her cheeks are morning-fresh and rosy. “You.”

Her brown eyes seem to sparkle. “Your abstinence is impressive, but you do know you won’t offend me if you eat bacon?”

I nod. “I know you’re not offended, and I appreciate that.” Delaney’s eating choices have always been for her, not something she tries to impose on others. “But let’s call a pig a pig. Bacon isn’t that good for you. And, truth be told, maybe some of your vegetarianism is rubbing off on me.” I hold up both hands. “Not saying I’m going the full nothing-with-a-face route. I just mean I’ve cut back. I’ll survive without it.”

An eyebrow rises. “You sure?”

I pretend to choke, then to cough, then I slump in the chair as if the last breath is fading from me.

A few seconds later I sit up, and she asks me if I’m going to live.

“It’ll be rough.”

She pretends to toss her napkin at me. “You’ll learn to love fake bacon. With avocado and lettuce,” she says, then as if an idea has just taken root, her eyes light up. “Actually, I’ll make one for you someday. My veggie BLTs are six shades of awesome.”

“Six shades? Not five and not seven, but six?”

“Yes. Six shades just like six toes. And maybe you’ll get to experience all six shades of my world-renowned BLT.”

“You mean FLT. Fake-on.”

She laughs as she folds the napkin across her lap once more, “What do you most like to do outside of work?” Her eyes drift northward. “Besides . . . that.”

“Besides that, I’d have to say rock climbing,” I answer. “Also, rafting and kayaking. And going to watch the Dodgers kick the asses of any New York baseball team.”

“Some things never change,” she says with a smile.

“And some things never should.”

She holds up her water glass in a toast, and I clink mine with hers.

The next day, we go for another run in the park in the early dawn. At the end of our five miles, we bump into Oliver. He’s stretching at the edge of the reservoir.

“Nichols, how’s it hanging?” he says in his best imitation of an American accent.

I clap him on the shoulder. “A little to the left, thank you very much.” Delaney snickers, and I turn to my running partner and make intros. “Delaney, this is Oliver. He works at my firm and pretends to talk American sometimes. Oliver, this is the lovely Delaney. We went to college together.”

Oliver pushes his mess of dark hair off his forehead and smiles at Delaney. With a slight bow of the head, he reaches for her hand and kisses the top. “Charmed,” he says, this time in his proper accent.

“I see you’re from Italy,” she jokes.

Oliver laughs and points at me. “She’s a keeper.”

I take her hand. “That’s the goal.”

Oliver turns his attention back to Delaney. “I trust you demolished him on the running path?”

“I did my absolute best to make sure he ate my dust.”

I adopt an abject frown. “It was terrible to have to watch her backside the entire time.”

On Wednesday, we plan a mid-afternoon coffee date. I wait for her outside a café on Columbus, shades on, head bent, answering emails on my phone.

As I tap out a reply to a client, soft lips flutter across my cheek. Sweet and delicious, they light sparks down my spine. I stop writing, stuff the phone in my pocket, and cup her cheek in my hand.

Turning her face to me, I kiss her on the street, and we spend our whole coffee date like that. Sans coffee and with kissing.

We walk and talk and kiss, like we’re practicing all the kinds of kissing in the world.

There’s the street corner kiss, the nibble on the lips kiss, then the so soft it’s barely there lip-lock. Somehow, even that last one sets my bones on fire.

But none more than the one I give her on Seventy-Eighth Street, as I push her up against the stoop outside a brownstone. Grabbing her jaw, I hold her face as I bestow a harsh, hungry kiss on those lips I fucking love.

She moans so helplessly that I have no choice but to crowd her against the banister and kiss her more cruelly, using teeth, sucking lips, devouring her taste. Her body melts into mine, and her arms rope round my neck. Her every sound and sigh tells me she likes it like this.

But I stop soon because the clock is ticking and I have a conference call at four. “I need to get back to work soon. I only have ten more minutes.”

“Me, too. I need to return to work, too.” She drops her gaze to the sidewalk, then looks up. Gone is the dark desire. In its place is something I haven’t seen in a while. She looks like a deer. She looks scared.

She swallows. Shit. Fuck. No. She’s going to end things, and they’ve barely started. My brain goes into hyperdrive, cycling back through the last few days to figure out where I’ve gone wrong. Did I say something thoughtless? Do something careless?

She runs her finger over the collar of my shirt. “I made a mistake.”

My throat clogs now. “What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t completely honest with you.”

I furrow my brow. “About what?”

She draws a sharp breath. “I’m sorry it took me so long to say this, but you know the other day when I said why I didn’t go to law school?”

She takes a beat, and I’m finally able to take a breath. “Sure. When we went for a run last Saturday?”

“Yes. I didn’t share the full story. I wasn’t sure how to say it all then, or if I was even ready to. But I want to be open with you even if it’s hard for me.”

I brush some hair off her face, tucking a strand behind her ear. “What is it, angel?”

Because whatever it is, I can handle it.

I mean, I think I can.

“When I said the debate competition was an eye-opener, it was. But, I’d already started thinking I didn’t want to go to law school.”

“Yeah? For how long?”

“For a few weeks. My father called me, and said something that made me rethink everything. I didn’t tell you all the details at the time.”

“I remember you mentioned the call. Why wouldn’t you tell me the details?” I ask, because I thought we’d worked through this issue before—her struggle to open up and share her hopes and fears.

“You were checking out, honestly. You were distant. But I can’t blame you entirely. I didn’t want to open up about the things he said. I didn’t want to give him all the credit for changing my mind.” She sighs. “Even though he was right.”

“What did he say?”

She inhales and raises her chin. “He said I’d make a good lawyer because I was like him. Because I’d always liked to fight. Just like he had with my mom.”

I cringe. “That must have hurt.”

She nods. “It hurt, and it was completely true. I liked to argue, but it ultimately wasn’t who I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be like him.” Her voice wobbles. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

I frown. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to give anyone any more power to hurt me. I didn’t want to keep serving up all these raw and exposed parts of myself to the men in my life, and let them just walk out.”

My heart aches for her—that she felt that way. But it aches too since she was right. I did walk out on her. “I wish you’d have said something then. But I guess I understand why you didn’t want to open up to me.”

She fixes me with a thoughtful stare. “It probably wouldn't even have made a difference.” Her tone is wistful, not angry.

“Delaney,” I say, wishing she wasn’t right.

“Would it have though?”

I sigh heavily, then shake my head. “No. But let’s do things differently this time around. I want you to be open with me now. I want you to tell me about your doubts and fears.” I grip her shoulders, holding her tight, so she gets it. So she knows I want to be there for her. And the least I can do is try to understand her heart and mind, even about something that happened eight years ago. “Tell me what you were thinking at the time. Tell me how the conversation made you feel.”

She fiddles with the collar on my shirt. Her nervous habit. “I started realizing he was right, and I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to argue. I saw too much of it growing up. Maybe that’s what drew me to law in the first place, but then I realized I want to heal, not to tear apart. That’s all the law felt like to me then. It was one long argument, and that’s what my home was like.” She takes a deep breath. It seems to fuel her. “I wanted a new path. One I chose for me. And when I went into the last debate, that’s why I said it was illuminating. I told myself it would be my last chance to decide what I truly wanted for my own future. When you won and I didn’t care that I'd lost, I knew I was done with law. I should have told you that when you asked me the other day in the park . . . but I didn’t.”

She’s shivering, even though it’s not cold. I wish this wasn’t always so hard for her to open up. But I understand why it is. I run my thumb along her jawline. “It’s okay. Thank you for telling me now.”

“I wasn’t sure what was happening between us that morning when we ran. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything if I wasn’t going to see you again.”

My heart speeds up. “Are you sure now that you’re going to see me again? Because you better keep seeing me.”

She swats me playfully. “You better be sure too. Because I want to keep seeing you, Tyler Nichols.”

“And you will see me. And I want you to talk to me. To trust me. To open up. Do you want that?”

She draws a sharp breath. “I do.”

And I smile once more. Because there it is. She isn’t going to keep everything hidden. She isn’t going to spend her days wrapping herself in armor. She’ll take it off, so long as she knows I’ll be here. I drop a kiss to her forehead and linger there. “I want you to know your heart is safe with me.”

“I want it to be safe with you,” she whispers. She pulls back and shoots me a coy little look. Her voice turns flirty. “But are you sure you aren’t mad at me for not telling you the full truth when we went running?”

I scoff. “Not even a little.”

She snaps her fingers in an aw-shucks gesture.

“Shame. Because I was ready to come to your office and grovel.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Did you say grovel?”