Page 14 of My Girl to Ruin

“You showed up at nine in the morning on a Saturday.”

“I said Saturday.”

“You did.” Something in her voice makes me look up. She’s got her chin propped on her hand, watching me the way people watch weather. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”

I go back to the door. “I said I would.”

“People say things.”

I test the bolt one more time and start packing the case. Behind me, the mattress creaks as she uncurls.

“Lachlan.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you.”

Something about the way she says it, plain and unhurried, with no expectation attached, makes it harder to take than if she’d made a fuss.

I snap the case shut. “Get your things.”

She blinks. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Her mouth opens. Closes. Color climbs into her cheeks, and I stand there and watch her work out exactly what I’m saying—and watch her decide not to make me say it twice.

“Okay,” she says.

She’s ready in four minutes. I don’t help.

***

I changed the sheets on Thursday.

I want to be honest with myself about what that means. I stood in a store on Thursday afternoon with a package of sheets in my hand like a man who had already decided something. I bought them, put them on the bed, and then spent two days telling myself it didn’t mean anything.

She notices. Of course she does. She steps into my apartment and takes in the made bed and the clean counter and the fact that there isn’t a takeout bag anywhere in the room. She doesn’t say a word about any of it. Just sets her bag down by the door and turns around to look at me.

“You planned this,” she says.

“Yeah.”

Her breath goes uneven. I watch it happen—the moment it stops being an idea and turns into something happening to her body. Everything I’ve been holding since her dorm room goes tight and hot and dangerous.

“Come here.”

She obeys.

I take her face in my hands, and I kiss her. I take my time about it because this is the last part of tonight I’m going to be able to do anything slowly.

I get her out of her clothes standing up, piece by piece, and I don’t rush any of it. Her shirt. The clasp of her bra, one-handed, while she watches my face. Jeans, socks, everything, until she’s bare in the middle of my apartment with the light on and her arms twitching like they want to cover her body.

“Don’t,” I say.

Her hands still.

“Let me look at you.”