The Ex Talk(46)

“You could find someone if you wanted.” A lazy roll of his head toward me, a lowering of his eyelashes to half-mast. “Someone who isn’t battery powered, I mean. You’re cute.”

It’s the first time he’s complimented me outright, and I have no idea what it means. Drunk words, sober thoughts? Even if that’s true, I shouldn’t care if Dominic thinks I’m cute. I am cute. He’s simply stating a fact.

Of course, I’m not going to tell him that the finding isn’t the issue—it’s the scaring away once I inevitably fall faster than the other person does.

“I thought I was ‘cool,’” I say, trying to project a coolness I do not feel. An aloofness. A nonchalance. I am Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher! I am Meryl Streep in that movie with the nuns. My gaze falls to his mouth, to the hollow of this throat, to the triangle of skin exposed by his unbuttoned buttons, and all pretense of cool vanishes. I am Meryl Streep in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.

“Both.”

“And once again, Drunk Dominic is much more fun than Sober Dominic.”

“Sober Dominic wants to tell you that he’s fun, too, but he’s too busy shaking his head disapprovingly at Drunk Dominic.”

I’m still laughing, heart still hammering, when the car stops outside his place. The bar wasn’t very far from his place downtown, but the ride felt shorter than I thought it would.

“I like this area,” I say as we get out of the car and I five-star Julius. The air against my face is a welcome respite from the heat of the back seat.

He shrugs. “It’s not great. You don’t have to sugarcoat it. I picked it because it was close to work.”

Each step we take is heavier than the last. I’m just walking him to the door. Surely I’m not helping him inside. He already seems much less wasted than he was at the bar. Still buzzed, but perfectly capable of entering a building without me fearing for his life.

“Thank you,” he says when we reach the front steps of his building, a newer construction that looks the same as all the other apartments on this street. He leans against the door, his trademark stance. Somehow, it doesn’t bother me as much as it usually does. “Again. I’m sure I would have made it home okay, but it’s nice to know, I guess . . . that you cared.”

That lands across my heart in a way I didn’t at all expect. “Of course I care.” I shuffle my weight from side to side, run my hand up and down the strap of my bag. “Just because we broke up doesn’t mean I stopped caring. I care about all my exes.”

This earns me a half smile. He likes that I’m playing along. He makes a move to reach for his keys—at least, that’s what I think he’s doing, until his hand lands on my wrist instead. I swear it happens in slow motion as he pinches the hair elastic I have there, snapping it against my skin.

The whisper of a sting goes away in an instant, but the aftershocks are vicious. I swallow hard. I’d wear elastics up and down my arms if it meant he’d do that again.

When he speaks, his voice is low. “I like your hair down,” he says, and it makes me grab at my hair on instinct. I was in such a rush that I didn’t think to put it up. “I know you wear it up all the time, and I like it up, but this . . . I like this a lot.”

“It’s really coarse,” I say quietly, awed that I’m able to make any sounds at all. “It can never decide if it’s curly or straight. That’s why I usually wear it up.”

His hand travels to my hair, sliding into it, and oh. I sway closer to him as his fingers get lost in my curly-straight mess, grazing my scalp. I inhale his earthy, heady scent. God, it’s been so long since someone touched me this way, even if it probably doesn’t count, given he’s my cohost slash fake ex slash possible friend. And drunk. Sober Dominic may be fun, according to him, but he would never do this.

“It feels pretty soft to me,” he says, and that is when I perish.

He uses that hand in my hair to guide me closer to him. Then he leans down, and before I can process what’s happening, his mouth is on mine.

And I’m kissing him back.

The press of his lips is firm but curious, a burst of warmth on a cold spring night. I can’t figure out what to do with my hands, not yet, not when this is already sensory overload. The lovely scrape of his stubble against my chin. The way his fingers grasp at strands of my hair. The rumble of a groan in his throat.

We shouldn’t do this, my brain screams at me.

Maybe he’s the only one who hears because he suddenly pulls away, leaving me desperate for air, gasping into the dark downtown. The kiss must have lasted less than three seconds. Three seconds that stole my bones and left me weightless.

The look on his face is abject horror. “Shit. Shit. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“No, it’s—” I break off, unsure what I was about to say. That it was fine? Because it’s definitely not. Because now I’m wondering what a sober kiss would feel like, what might have happened if I’d opened my mouth. If he’d pushed me up against his front door. “I mean, I’m still pretty tipsy too, so . . .”

“Fuck, this is embarrassing,” he says, shaking his head, scrubbing a hand down his face. Mistake is written all over it. “I’m clearly still a lot drunker than I thought. Let’s just—”