“Did you come to beat on me again?”
“Where is she?”
The toilet flushes, making the answer to his question obvious.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Nadia is fine. She doesn’t need you to rescue her from me.”
Nadia emerges from my bedroom wearing–oh God, she looks glorious!–one of my t-shirts. The vintage Ramones shirt hits her mid-thigh and makes her look good enough to eat.
“Adrian, what are you doing here?” She shoves her hair out of her face. Her voice is still laced with sleep, and I revel in the fact that she sounds happy. Like she just had the best night’s rest.
Adrian narrows his eyes at her. “Why the fuck haven’t you answered my texts?”
“Um, I think that’s kind of obvious, Adrian,” Kat says. To me and Nadia, she says, “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“How did you even find this place?” Nadia asks.
“I have a tracker on your phone,” Adrian admits in a grumble. “For safety.”
“Well, I’m safe.” Nadia walks up behind me and wraps her arms around me. It’s the kind of gesture I normally hate from a girl on the morning after–and I don’t usually even do morning afters–but I absolutely love it this time. It feels like Nadia’s claiming me–which she has refused to do before now. Like she wants to stay and not run off with her brother this time.
I lift one arm over her head to draw her against my side. “Please stay,” I murmur. I sound like the clingy girls I try to avoid, but something about Nadia leaving today alarms me.
I want her with me, filling this apartment with her magical presence. I want to work on that song she inspired in me last night while I’m looking at her beautiful face.
Adrian tips his head toward the door. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m going to stay,” Nadia says, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“How long?”
“Bro,” I cut in. “She’s not a child. She has your number if she needs anything, but she won’t because I’m not going to fuck this up.”
Nadia lifts her face to me in surprise. In fact, all three of them stare at me as if I’ve sprouted a banana tree from the top of my head, and I realize I’ve said way too much out loud.
Nadia and I are officially just friends. There shouldn’t be anything to fuck up.
But it’s out there, and I won’t take it back.
“I have an extra rehearsal over there this afternoon. I can drive you home then,” I offer.
Adrian gives me a long, hard look. “I don’t trust you,” he says finally.
Fuck.
“I do,” Nadia pipes up. “I would trust Flynn to the ends of the Earth.”
Adrian shakes his head. “Nadia…” He scrubs a hand across his face. “Do you know how many girls have been in his bed?”
Double fuck. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. Of course, there’s nothing I can say to that because it’s true.
This doesn’t feel like the right time to make that confession to Nadia that I want something more than what we have. I wish to hell I’d done it last night before she fell asleep with her sweet head resting on my shoulder.
“Yes,” Nadia says simply, chin lifted. “It doesn’t matter or make him untrustworthy. It just means he’s good in bed, which is what I need right now.”
Ouch.
I’d like to think I brought more than sex to the table, but maybe I’m delusional. I mean, Nadia was honest from the start about what she wanted. A bed partner to help her have sex again.
I did that for her.
Maybe now is when we go back to being friends.
But no, she said she’s staying.
Just for sex, a voice in my head grumbles. I know I should ask her. We need to have a conversation to clarify and redefine, except even as I think it, I know I probably won’t do it. Because I don’t want to end this prematurely.
If she only wants sex, but isn’t finished yet, I want it to keep playing out.
I don’t want her to end things because I declare myself in love with her.
Dammit. I’m in a fucking pickle here.
Well, for starters, I need her to stay and Adrian to leave. I focus on him. “I won’t hurt Nadia. I understand what she’s been through, and I’m careful. I’m paying attention. I know how to be the guy she needs.”
Adrian considers me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
Or like he sees the new me. The one Nadia revealed. “You have bigger balls than I expected,” he admits.
“I won’t hurt her,” I repeat.
She may demolish me, but I would die before I hurt Nadia.
“If you do, I’ll cut those nuts off and feed them to your–”
“Oh-kay,” Kat interrupts loudly. “We’re leaving. Bye. Love you, Nadia.” She blows a kiss to Nadia with one hand as she tugs Adrian’s elbow with the other.
Adrian doesn’t move despite Kat’s attempts. He points a tattooed finger at me.
“Go, Adrian,” Nadia says.
Abruptly he turns, puts an arm around Kat and guides her out the door.
Nadia groans when the door shuts. “I’m sorry my brother is such an ass.”
“It’s cool,” I say. I’m still smarting from the notion that I’m just a sex therapist for Nadia, but I don’t plan to let it show.
She still has her arms around me from the side, and she peers up at me now. “Why are you so nice to me?”
I smile down at her, dazzled by her affection. “You’re pretty good to me, too, Peaches.”
“Am I?”