Losing Hope

funny when they’re in text form,” she says.
    She stands up and walks to the freezer at the same time I turn around to walk to the refrigerator for the minced garlic. Her back is to me and she’s filling her cup with ice. She turns around when I reach the refrigerator. She looks up at me with those big brown eyes and those pouty lips and I take a step closer to her, hoping I make her flustered again. I love making her flustered.
    I lift my arm and press my palm flat against the refrigerator and look her in the eyes. “You know I’m kidding, right?”
    She immediately sucks in a rush of air and nods. I grin and move in even closer. “Good. Because you don’t snore. In fact, you’re pretty damn adorable when you sleep.” I don’t know why I told her she didn’t snore. Maybe I don’t want her to know just how long I actually stayed in her bed watching her after she fell asleep last night.
    She tugs on her bottom lip, looking up at me hopefully. Her chest is heaving and her arms are dusted in chills and I wish more than anything I could just grab her face and kiss her. I want to kiss her more than I want air.
    But I already told myself I wouldn’t, so I’m not.
    That doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun with her, though. I move my lips until they’re almost touching her ear. “Sky. I need you . . .” I pause for a second and wait for her to catch her breath. ”. . . to move. I need in the fridge.” I pull back and watch for her reaction. Her palms are flat against the refrigerator behind her like she’s struggling to hold herself upright.
    Seeing her physical reaction to my proximity makes me smile. When I smile and she sees I was purposely teasing her, she narrows her eyes and I laugh.
    She pushes against my chest and shoves me back. “You’re such an ass!” she says, walking to the bar.
    “I’m sorry, but damn. You’re so blatantly attracted to me, it’s hard not to tease you.” I’m still laughing when I walk back to the stove with the garlic. I pour some into the pan and glance at her. She’s covering her face with her hands from embarrassment and I immediately feel guilty. I don’t want her thinking I’m not into her, because I’m positive I’m into her way more than she’s into me. I guess I haven’t made that very clear to her, though, which is a little unfair.
    “Want to know something?” I ask.
    She looks up at me and shakes her head. “Probably not.”
    “It might make you feel better,” I say.
    “I doubt it.”
    I look at her and she’s not smiling and I hate it. I meant for this to be lighthearted; I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. “I might be a little bit attracted to you, too,” I admit, hoping it’ll help her realize that I didn’t mean to embarrass her.
    “Just a little bit?” she asks, teasingly.
    No. Not just a little bit. A whole helluva lot.
    I continue to prepare the food and I’m doing everything I can to get it all started so I can sit and talk with her while it cooks. She just sits silently at the bar, watching me work my way around her kitchen. I love that she’s not modest when it comes to the way she watches me. She stares at me like she doesn’t want to look at anything else and I like it.
    “What does lol mean?”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yes, seriously. You typed it in your text earlier.”
    “It means laugh out loud. You use it when you think something is funny.”
    “Huh,” she says. “That’s dumb.”
    “Yeah, it is pretty dumb. It’s just habit, though, and the abbreviated texts make it a lot faster to type once you get the hang of it. Sort of like OMG and WTF and IDK and . . .”
    “Oh, God, stop,” she says quickly. “You speaking in abbreviated text form is really unattractive.”
    I wink at her. “I’ll never do it again, then.” I walk to the counter and pull the vegetables out of the sack. I run them under the water and move the cutting board to the bar in front of her. “Do you like chunky or smooth spaghetti sauce,” I ask, placing the tomato in front of me. She’s looking past me, lost in thought. I wait to see if she’ll answer me when she catches back up, but she just keeps staring off into space.
    “You okay?” I ask her, waving my hand once in front of her eyes. She finally snaps out of it and looks up at me. “Where’d you go? You checked out for a while there.”
    She shakes it off. “I’m fine.”
    I don’t like her tone of voice. She doesn’t seem fine.
    “Where’d you go,