Page 30 of His to Love
“On a Sunday?” I asked and held the mug in both hands close to my chest.
He looked at me for a moment before answering with a wry grin. “Law doesn’t wait for anyone or any day.”
“Okay then, I guess…have a good day?” His eyes looked blank, making nerves begin to build inside me.
We hadn’t had sex.
Even if we had, I had no reason to be embarrassed, but while he was doing all the right things, saying all the right things, something had put distance between us since we had rolled out of bed. Tyson stepped toward me, and my throat tightened.
“Give me your phone.” He held out his hand. My eyes dropped to his palm and then raised back up to meet his. I stared at him, dumbly, until a small smile spread into a wide grin that flashed amusement in his eyes. “I want your number, Blue. I want to put my number in your phone, but I can’t do that without your phone.”
“Oh. Right.” I caught his quiet laugh while I moved back to the bedroom, grabbed my phone from the nightstand next to the bed, and headed back to the living room.
When I reached the kitchen, I saw Tyson set my mug on the counter. “I thought you didn’t have time for coffee,” I said, teasing him.
“Just wanted a taste.”
I unlocked my phone and handed it to him, watched while he added his number, and then caught another smile stretching his cheeks.
“What’s funny?” I asked and he handed me my phone. Looking down at the screen, I chuckled when I saw that he entered his name into my contacts as“Blackbird.”I lifted my eyes to his and matched his smile. “You remember.”
Blackbird was the nickname given to him by a bunch of his football buddies once everyone found out the reason Tyson called me Blue was because my full middle name is Bluejay. They got a kick out of teasing us mercilessly but good-naturedly.
“Told you I remember everything.”
I sent him a quick text, just a quick hello, and set my phone on the counter after his phone pinged with a notification in his rear pocket.
“Now you have mine,” I said, my voice quiet, and for some reason, my cheeks began to heat.
Tyson reached out and pressed his palm to my cheek. His lips brushed against mine once, and then twice, before he pulled back and said, “I want to take you to dinner tomorrow night. Do you have any plans?”
I stiffened as I remembered my father saying Malik could be contacting me tomorrow, but I couldn’t imagine he’d want to do dinner immediately.
“I shouldn’t,” I finally said. “I have to do some job hunting and apartment looking, but can I let you know once I’m certain?”
“Definitely. Have a good day.”
He kissed me again, another soft goodbye kiss that lacked the passion of our first kisses this morning. When he was gone, I was once again left staring at a closed hotel room door. Disappointment balled inside my gut at his abrupt departure, at the way our morning went from something that could have been really…really good…to distant and passionless.
Because if it were up to me, we would have been back in my bed, pleasuring each other with a quickie if that was all he had time for before he had to leave.
The disappointment in my gut grew into something larger at the thought that maybe he didn’t want me as much as I wanted him.
“Stop it,” I muttered to myself and reached for my now barely warm cup of coffee. “You’re just horny, and he was in a hurry. No big deal.”
Somehow, the pep talk helped, as did a fresh cup of coffee.
I spent the rest of the afternoon searching for jobs, ensuring my résumé was up to date, and then emailing it off to several different companies in the Detroit metro area and a few northern suburbs.
Then I fixed myself up for dinner at my parents’ and spent time with my mom. All before trudging back to my hotel room, exhausted and emotionally drained from another few hours spent at my mom’s bedside, sitting there with nothing to do while she slept almost the entire time.
I crawled into my bed and was just about ready to fall asleep when my phone beeped.
Blackbird: Night, Blue
A grin stretched my tired lips. My body warmed.
Me: Night, Black
