“How am I supposed to know what’s equally personal value?”
He grins. “Because if you agree, I’ll go first, as a matter of trust.”
I stare up at him, and damn him, but I see nothing but truth. “Fuck, fine.”
He nods. “And so it begins.” He tugs me by the hand. “Come on. Personal conversations like this are best had in private.”
He leads me to his room, lies on his bed—I notice he leaves plenty of room beside him. When I stay standing in the doorway, he pats the bed next to him. “Close the door and come sit.”
Moving reluctantly, I close his door and move to his bed, perching on the edge—stiffly, awkwardly, with no intention of relaxing.
He laughs. His bed contains at least half a dozen thick, puffy, soft pillows in heather gray jersey pillowcases; he stuffs two behind his back and a third behind his head, scooching down and burrowing back, ankles crossed. “Get comfy, Annika. No sense acting all…” He wiggles a hand at me. “Awkward and shit. I ain’t gonna bite.”
“I’m fine.”
He stares at me, shaking his head in amusement. And then, managing to move both lightning fast and yet still gently, he snags me around the middle and tugs me toward him. Before I understand what’s happening, I’m tucked against him, sheltered under the massive weight of his huge arm, his skin soft and warm under my ear and cheek.
“Relax.”
“Let go,” I hiss.
“Do me a favor and take three deep breaths. Close your eyes, take the breaths, and then tell me to let go.”
“Chance, goddammit—”
“Try it.”
Every muscle tensed, not breathing, not daring to so much as blink, I’m trapped inside the curl of his arm, pinned to his side.
Forced snuggles.
If I wasn’t so panicked, freaked out, and pissed off, I’d almost find it funny.
I wriggle. “Let go,” I snarl. “Get off me.”
“I’m not on you, I’m holding you. Humor me for thirty fuckin’ seconds, Annika. Close your eyes. Relax. Take three deep breaths. You do that, genuinely, and you still want me to let you go, I will.”
“Swear?”
The arm wrapped over me—which seems to weigh approximately as much as I do—lifts slightly, and his pinky appears, extended toward my hands. “Swear.”
I can’t help a laugh. “Really? A pinky swear?”
“Sure,” he laughs. “Real men pinky swear.”
I ignore his hand. “Well real women don’t. Or at least this one doesn’t.” I let out a breath. “Fine, fuck.”
Mainly because surging underneath the panic is a strong current of security and enjoyment, I close my eyes and force my muscles to unclench, one by one. Toes. Calves. Thighs. Belly. Arms. Shoulders. Neck. Same way I get to sleep at night—the only way I can. I pull in a long, slow, deep breath through my nose, let it out just as slowly. Again. A third time.
By the end of the third breath, I can’t ignore the fact that I feel…safe. That I don’t utterly hate, loathe, and despise being held by him like this.
Which, in and of itself is just fucking weird.
Before I can say anything, he speaks. His voice is a quiet rumble, like faraway thunder. “My dad called my mother that—mama. It was his thing. He…he fuckin’ loved her so goddamn hard, shit. You don’t even know. The shit that man did for her.” He’s quiet a moment, then lets out a sigh. “That was his…whaddyou call it. His term of endearment for her. Don’t know I ever heard him call her by her actual name. Just…mama. I guess I sort of absorbed it.”
“So you call all your girlfriends mama, then.”
Another pause. “Nope.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope.”
I twist my head to look up at him. “Why not?”
“Well, cause first and foremost, never really had what you’d consider a girlfriend. And also, the women who have been in my life…I wouldn’t call ’em that. Callin’ a woman mama, for me, is…it’s for when it’s special.”
I choke on my shock. “Wh-what? Why?”
He laughs. “Why? What do you mean, why? I just told you.”
“No—me. Why me? Why do you call me mama, then? I’m not special to you. You don’t even know me.”
“You are.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Sure is,” he agrees.
I cackle. “Oh, great, thanks.”
He barks a laugh. “Hey now, you’re laying here in my arms, in my bed with me. I’m telling you there’s something special about you—and you say it’s ridiculous, then get pissy when I agree?”
I decline to answer that. “You’ve never had a girlfriend?”
“Nope.” He moves a heavy shoulder in a shrug. “Like I said, not like you’d consider a girlfriend.”
“But there have been women.”
“Yes, there have been women.”
“But only casual.”
He shakes his head. “No. I’m no hookup artist. It’s complicated, okay?”
“How complicated can it be?” I ask. “You’ve been with women, but it’s never been a relationship… Therefore, it’s always been casual.”
“There are places in between relationship and casual,” he says, sounding defensive.
I shift, resting my head a little further onto his pec than his shoulder. “Oh yeah? Like what? And don’t say friends with benefits. That’s casual sex, just with the same person instead of randoms.”
I’m not letting myself think about how this feels. That I’m doing it at all. It’s just conversation. It means nothing.
“Like when shit is complicated.” He pats my hip. “Your turn.”
“My turn?” Like I don’t know what he means.
“Yeah. Your turn. Share something of equally personal value to why I call you mama. It ain’t my deepest darkest secret, but it ain’t something inane, like my favorite color. Which, by the way, is purple.”
I consider. “Fine. I’ll give you the obvious—what happened to my knee.”
He squeezes my hip. “Nope. Save that.”
“Why?”
“Cause that’s big. Mine wasn’t big. It was personal, but minor. What happened to your knee is personal, and big. Shit like that changes your life. Affects who you are as a person. This ain’t that kinda conversation.”
I huff. “Fine. I guess I just like to get it out of the way. People are always asking.”
He lets out a deep, low hum, the vibration of it rattling through me. “I bet. Notice, not one of those folks out there did?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I noticed.”
“We aren’t the prying kind.”
“This cane.” I have it on the edge of the bed beside me, behind me; I lift it over our heads, twisting it in my fingers. “My grandfather made it for me, after the accident. He was a woodworker—as a hobby, not a profession. He could’ve made a living at it, he was that good. He carved this by hand, from a piece of Brazilian Ipe wood. From what he told me at the time, Ipe is the hardest of the hardwoods to come out of Brazil. Very desirable kind of wood, but very hard to work with, I guess.” I examine the cane, as I have countless times; it’s a helix, braided sections twisting upward around each other to the sharp, hooked handle and downward to the tip. A simple style, but fascinating and beautiful. “My grandfather was my favorite human. He, um. He passed away just eight months ago, and this is…to me, this cane is him. I miss him every day, every hour. I think about him all the fucking time, and I would give anything, even my other leg, to have him back.”