Whatever. I grab Tyler’s phone from the coffee table and dial for delivery. They don’t ask for an address or a credit card—I don’t even have to ask them to make his broccoli beef extra spicy.
I lean back on the couch and continue my breath-holding technique, my eyes squeezed tightly shut against the pain and bright light. Tyler rests his left hand on my thigh and steadies his right arm against my shin as he keeps picking at my knee.
His face is scrunched in concentration, yet all I can think about is how warm his hand feels on my thigh. I wish he would inch it higher on my leg, but it’s anchored in place.
Tyler shifts and I open my eyes at the new movement. “Hands.”
I sit up on the couch and hold out my hands. He inspects my palms closely and picks at a few specks before he nods, confirming they are clean.
Tyler shifts his body on the couch and grasps my face the way he did on the bridge, his thumbs on my cheekbones and his fingers threaded through the hair just behind my ears.
My pulse quickens.
He tips up my chin, bringing my mouth closer to his and I smell citrus on his breath.
This is what I came here for. Not heart-wrenching gentleness, but chemistry, spark and passion.
Tyler’s face is inches from mine as he tilts my face toward the light of the gooseneck lamp and peers at the scrape on my chin.
I deflate.
“I don’t think your chin’s as bad as it looked. The cuts are not nearly as deep as the rest.” Tyler releases my face and disappointment floods me. I wanted him to make more of that moment.
Tyler smears antibiotic ointment on my hands, knees and chin and applies bandages. The way he’s fixed completely on me is intoxicating.
The thrum of a guitar ringtone prompts Tyler to dive for his phone. “I’m on my way down,” he says and ends the call.
He jumps up from the couch and stuffs his feet into shoes, grabbing his wallet. “Food’s here. I’ll be right back.”
I nod and he’s out the door. I pull my raw knees to my chest and hug them close, drained from everything that’s happened tonight. He kissed me on the bridge, kissed me like he wanted to know every part of me, and then when he had me stripped to nearly nothing in the shower, he kept me at arm’s length.
I don’t understand him.
Tyler returns with a bag of fragrant food and rummages in his kitchen for utensils. We spread our feast on the coffee table and I try some of his broccoli beef. It’s painfully spicy and I stick out my tongue and fan my face in pain.
“Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough, Tyler?”
He laughs and tickles my side. “You knew it was spicy. I’d say you did that to yourself.” I go to the kitchen and pour us glasses of water, bringing them back to the couch where he’s sitting.
“Water doesn’t work, you know. It only makes the heat more intense.”
My brain returns to the shower, the scalding water on my knees, the heat between my legs as I felt him stroke my feet. Water did make the heat between us more intense.
I think Tyler understands the double meaning I pull from his words because he clears his throat and focuses on the food. I let silence fill the space between us and it feels like snow falling, each moment quieter than the last.
Finally, I break it. “Tyler? I wrote the story about your practice space.”
He nods, his mouth full.
“I didn’t write anything bad about you or the band. I know you and Gavin and Beryl don’t trust me right now—and I know I don’t deserve it—but I want you to see that I’m trying to earn it back. That trust.”
“Stella. Stop beating yourself up. I know you’re trying to make things right.” He gestures to me to look around. “I trust you.”
“You do?” I realize he means that he trusts me to be in his home, even though I’m not officially reporting a story.
I put my half-empty carton of chow mein on the coffee table and hesitate, but the other question pounding in my head needs to be asked. “You kissed me—”
Tyler nods his head seriously but a smile plays on his lips. “I did. I had a beautiful woman in my arms on a perfect summer night under the fireworks. Who could resist?”
He called me beautiful. This derails my train of thought but I force myself to focus. “Why’d you stop?”
He shakes his head and runs his hands through his hair. I’m beginning to recognize this nervous gesture. “I wish I didn’t have to.”
I scoot closer to him on the couch, emboldened by his smile, by the beautiful he saw when I was at my absolute worst. “You didn’t have to stop.”
I nuzzle closer to him and his hand glides up the back of my neck into my damp hair. He fists my hair and tips my face upward, bringing my mouth inches from his.
“I didn’t want to stop,” Tyler whispers, his breath on my lips. “I wanted you.” He presses his lips to mine and pulls me against his chest roughly. I answer every question in that kiss with yes, and ask him for more with my tongue.
I want him like air, like water, like sleep and sunshine. I want him to break free of whatever’s holding him back, to just live this moment with abandon.
But Tyler breaks off our kiss and shakes his head, still holding me tightly against him. “I want you, Stella, but we have to stop this. Now. I can’t have a relationship with you.”
I’m stunned, maybe more because he said the R word when we barely know each other, than because he’s rejecting me. Again.
Rejection. Another R word I hate.
I’m too fearful to ask why, so instead I try to rationalize this. (Another R word! Fuck!) “You don’t have to have a relationship with me. Have you considered the possibility that maybe I’m not gunning for a relationship, either?”
Tyler looks confused and I trace my fingers along his ink-stained bicep, making my meaning clear. I shift closer to him, trying to fit our bodies together the way they interlocked so perfectly on the bridge.
“You don’t have to give me roses and promises, Tyler. This can just be about us, our chemistry, the way we connect. I can feel the way your body reacts to mine.”
I’m going for broke, but sometimes a little daring works better than a lot of patience. What was it Tyler said at the restaurant? Life is about being brave.
Yeah. That.
I trail my hands across his chest, feeling his nipple piercings beneath his shirt. I’ve never touched a man with pierced nipples before but I’ve heard it’s an erotic stimulus, so I imagine Tyler can’t be too hesitant to jump in the sack.
I feel Tyler’s energy shift and his mouth leans down to cover mine again. I lean into the kiss, but it’s not the raw desire I tasted just a minute ago. It’s sweet and soft and pleading. He breaks away before I’m ready.
“Stella, listen to me. I can’t have a relationship with you right now. I can’t, and you have to respect that.”
I blink, tears stinging my eyes from the rejection and the implication that boldly taking the lead was somehow disrespecting his choices.
“You can’t have a relationship, or you can’t have sex?” I’m angry and I’m lashing out at him and Tyler looks horrified. “Which is it, Tyler? Because I’m sick of this little mindfuck, the kissing and touching and then pushing me away.”
“Seriously, Stella?” Tyler’s hoarse with surprised anger. “You never just kissed someone to kiss them? Because they smelled good and tasted good and felt amazing in your arms? You never just kissed without expectation?”
I freeze, knowing Tyler is right. I can’t remember the last time I kissed someone just because I wanted to, without expecting to get laid within the hour. It’s a painful truth and it makes me feel easy. Trashy. Cheap.