But I did it quietly.
“I get you.”
He blinked. “You get me?”
I nodded, not about to say it again.
His eyes grew sharp but his face went guarded. “Maybe I should understand what exactly you get.”
This was a weird thing for f**k buddies, and another way I had to admit we kind of broke that mold. It was also something Ren used repeatedly to press the fact that we weren’t actually f**k buddies, but together together. We just didn’t go out on dates or meet each other’s parents… yet (the “yet” part was Ren’s).
And what that weird thing was was that he knew me. I also knew him. He paid attention, when we were ha**ng s*x and when we weren’t. I did the same.
So it wasn’t surprising he asked this question.
“Those dudes were bad dudes,” I explained. “I know how bad, Ren. I’d been poking around them for months.” I put my hand to his chest to press my point home since his face went unguarded and his eyes started to warm. “But they buried Faye alive. I knew the risks. I weighed them and my friend got pulled out of that box breathing. Barely, but she made it.”
He moved one of his hands down to the side of my neck so he could stroke my throat with his thumb. This was another something new. Then again, I didn’t give him many opportunities to show affection like that and I was thinking that was a good thing seeing as it felt incredibly nice.
“There’s gonna be a path you cross,” he said gently. “A path that no matter what firepower you got taking your back, they’re gonna try to take you down. I do not want you to get to that place, baby.”
Unusually, I used a calm voice rather than an irate one when I explained, “I’m not exactly being stupid. I’ve got Brody and Darius. I’m careful.”
That was only mostly true.
I slid my hand up his chest, exploring this unchartered territory of intimacy and sharing, and wrapped it around the side of his neck, putting pressure on. He gave me what I wanted and his face drew even closer.
“I like doing this, Ren. I like it. I’ve tried a lot of things in my life. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree. I’m a certified radiology tech. I’ve done nails. And I’m thirty-two years old. Now I work part-time in a bookstore/coffee shop and full-time slinging drinks. I don’t like doing any of that as much as I like what you don’t like me doing. That’s why I keep doing it, even though I know a lot of people, not just you, don’t like me doing it. Because I like it. It feels right. It feels like I finally found what I wanna be. It’s like I finally found me.”
He studied me and for once said not a word.
Again unusually, I kept talking rationally.
“I know you’re worried about those guys I got involved with last night. So are Darius and Brody. So am I. But I took a calculated risk to save my friend. I’ll watch my back and I have good guys watching it, too. So I’ll be all right.”
He kept studying me, but I had nothing else to say.
Finally, he spoke.
“You know, just sayin’, you said this shit to me like you just said it to me rather than yellin’ at my ass until the only option I have to stop you from yellin’ is to tap your ass, it might have penetrated about ten months ago.”
Something about that made me laugh. Maybe because it was funny.
And there was something about this that I liked. And there was no maybe about the fact that it not only seemed he listened to me, but he heard me and he got me.
And I liked that.
When I quit laughing, Ren was smiling down at me.
My heart skipped a beat.
I didn’t get many of those, seeing as we fought all the time and when we weren’t his mouth was engaged with doing other things.
But just like now, when I did get a smile from Ren Zano, it hit straight to the heart of me.
His smile downgraded to a grin and his eyes moved over my face, something happening in them I didn’t quite get. But whatever it was seemed to mean something. It looked like he was about to say something, but he thought better of it and kept quiet.
I didn’t.
“I dig the mountains, but me and the boys shot up here without provisions and I’ve got shit to do at home, so it might be time to get a move on.”
“Right,” he replied. “There’s a drugstore across the street. I’ll go over, get toothbrushes and shit. There’s also a coffee shop down the street. You wanna make coffee in that little pot on the dresser or you want me to pick you up a real coffee?”
I stared up at him.
We’d never done anything like this, acting semi-normal and not always crazy.
I was a little stunned he could be thoughtful.
No. That wasn’t true. I knew he was the kind of guy who could to be that way. He often demonstrated thoughtful tendencies. Like when I’d show at his house in the wee hours after a bartending shift, he’d ask me if I’d eaten and I’d find he’d made a batch of spaghetti sauce or some cannelloni and he’d heat it up to feed me. And I knew he probably didn’t make that just for himself, but also preparing to feed me later.
Shit like that.
But everybody had to eat, so going out of his way to be thoughtful? I’d never seen that. Mostly because I’d never given him the chance.
Except last Christmas, when he’d been really thoughtful.
So maybe I wasn’t staring up at him stunned because he was being thoughtful.
Maybe I was doing it because this demonstration of further thoughtfulness moved me.
Shit.
“I, uh…” I started and stopped since it took me a bit to shake it off, how nice it felt to be this way with Ren. But I managed it and kept going. “We’ll start with coffee here and get a real one for the trip home. But a toothbrush wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Gotcha,” he muttered, dipping close to touch his lips to mine, and he did this for no reason. Something else he’d never done. Then he pulled away, rolled off me and exited the bed. He yanked the covers over me after he did (again, thoughtful) and proceeded dressing.
It was then I lost the ability to think about anything as I watched Ren move, going from na**d to dressed, so I laid there and let myself enjoy the fullness of that (as well as the heat it caused in me). The show was so good, I was rerunning certain parts of it in my head when it was over and this made me an unmoving target when Ren came back to the bed. He hooked a hand around the back of my neck, pulled me up and again touched his mouth to mine.
“Back in a few,” he murmured. He gave me a small grin that warmed his eyes in a way that ratcheted up that heat in me, then he walked to and through the door.