Brutal Game (Flynn and Laurel #2)(8)

“You remember when we first said it?” he asked.

“What? ‘I love you’?”

“Mm hm.”

“I do indeed. It was October thirtieth.”

He blinked. “That early? You been keepin’ a diary I don’t know about?”

“It was the day before Halloween, I’m pretty sure. We were lying right here, and I’d had, like, three beers, and I was going on and on and on about all the costumes I’d made myself as a kid. And I caught myself, and I caught you, how you were just listening, asking me questions, letting me be drunk and sentimental and boring and acting like you were actually interested.”

“Maybe I was.”

She laughed. “No sober person would’ve been. But it just hit me, out of the blue. I think there was some complete non sequitur, like, ‘And when I was eleven I went as Lisa Simpson,’ and then a big dumbfounded pause and, ‘I love you.’”

“‘I love you, Flynn,’” he corrected.

She smiled. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Same as I’ll take your word it was October. We didn’t wait that long, did we?”

“No, not really. Three months?”

“You say that to many guys before me?”

“Two. How many women did you say it to?”

“Just one.”

“You mean it?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I did. Did you?”

“One of them, yeah, I meant it. The other one, I meant it, but I also didn’t really know what I was talking about. I think I was mostly infatuated.”

“Who was he? I’ll kill him. Tomorrow. After breakfast.”

She snorted. “Down, boy. He was my high school boyfriend. Who did you say it to? That woman who taught you all about rough sex and stuff?”

“No, not her.” She’d meant a lot to Flynn, and he had loved her, had felt that, but he’d known it wasn’t that serious to her. She wouldn’t have said it back, and he’d spared the both of them the awkwardness of underscoring how mismatched their investments had been.

“Who?” she asked again.

“My first serious girlfriend. The one I half-traumatized, wanting to fake-rape her all the time.”

“Oh, right.”

“Who was the second guy you said it to?”

“Someone I dated in college.”

“Why’d you break up?”

“I can’t remember, exactly. I just remember he annoyed me by the end, and I think I bummed him out. The second half of college was really hard for me. I’m surprised I made it through, looking back.”

“You’re at least twice as strong as you give yourself credit for.”

“Probably.”

“You’re the first woman I’ve said that to since I was man enough to know what the f*ck it really means,” he offered. And since he’d truly known who he was, and what he needed from a lover.

“Aw. Well, you’re the first man I’ve said it to, period. Both the other boyfriends were, like… I dunno. Dudes.”

“Tell me I’m better in bed than either of them.”

“Oh my God, yes. I feel like I never even had sex before I f*cked you.”

“I love you.”

She laughed. “It’s true. I mean, not like I’d never been given an orgasm or anything, but f*ck, Flynn.”

He grinned, all lit up inside.

“It’s like I thought I knew what a strawberry tasted like because I’d smelled a scratch-n-sniff sticker of one. But you…”

“Never stop talking.”

“Not that f*cking you isn’t a little terrifying,” she said, “but you’ve absolutely ruined me for every other man on the planet for all time.”

“My work here is done.”



* * *



Laurel woke with the sun, which was to say, late. The winter light looked lazy, more slinking through the blinds than shining. She wished she could stay in this bed, beside this warm man, all day. But such was not reality.

She rolled over, shoving at Flynn’s arm until he did the same and let her spoon him.

His work had him up around five most mornings, and even with the punishment of fight nights he was awake by six on the weekends. “You slept in,” she said through a yawn.

“Not entirely. Mostly I’ve just been sitting here, watching you sleep.” He said it in a creepy, breathy voice, and wrestled around to take a dramatic whiff of her hair, sending her into giggles. He knew she found that trope laughably disturbing.

She poked his chest. “Gross. Why do people think that’s a sexy thing for a guy to do in books and movies? Watch a woman sleep?”

“Stalkers must do well in fiction.”

“Very. But believe me—I know and trust and love you, but if I ever wake up to find you sitting beside me on my bed, just staring at me…”

“Dumpsville?”

“I dunno. Just… Just be jacking it, please.”

He laughed.

“Have the decency not to pretend like it’s broody and romantic. Perv all-in. If not, yes, Dumpsville. Population: you.”

“That go both ways?”