After a few minutes, her heartbeat evened out and her breathing calmed. Part of her still wanted to fight. Didn’t want to want this. But that part faded along with the tension from her limbs. Okay, so theirpace was different than her usual speed. No one really talked about how so much of letting other people in involved listening to yourself.
Naomi didn’t know how long they sat like that, not speaking, her face tucked against his neck. He smelled like summer, like more daylight and going outside to lie in the grass.
Ethan brought his hand up and combed through her hair after a while, the gentle tugging the most soothing sensation she could imagine.
Okay. So this... holding... wasn’t better than sex, but it was maybe more than sex, for her at least, tonight.
She hardly ever let herself be still with anyone, too afraid that if she did, they might see the hungry gaping wound of her heart. How it wanted and wanted and wanted so much that she never fed it anymore for fear of it growing too powerful and consuming her.
Naomi knew it was okay to want closeness and comfort without sex, but asking for that still felt a little like surrender.
As it turned out, maybe this was modern intimacy.
The way Ethan breathed, even and easy, his body moving hers like gentle swells on the ocean. The way his shoulders held steady under her hands. The way he ran his fingertips like a whisper down her back. The way she could fall asleep like this, if she wanted. Safe and cared for.
Apparently, sometimes even teachers had a lot to learn.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A FEW DAYSafter what she’d started thinking of as “the cuddling incident,” Naomi wrapped her hands around her third cup of coffee and, with an aggressive shake of her head, brought her attention back to the Shameless status meeting. Between the extra hours she’d put in studying for her class and waking up early this morning to adjust her lecture series notes, her head weighed about fifty pounds at the moment.
“Filming last week went even better than we’d hoped,” Cass said, filling the founders in on last week’s shoot. “Josh and I reviewed the raw footage last night, and we think we can extend the series from three videos to five, easy.”
“Oh, that’s great.” Clara moved to adjust the magnetic note cards they used to map their content calendar across a wall in the conference room. “Let’s do that and plan to keep one video exclusive for platinum subscribers. Naomi, you’ve been working on a new tiered programming structure, right? Can we review that now?”
Naomi blinked. “Sorry, what?”
Next to her, Josh furrowed his dark brows. “Last week you said you’d review the subscriber analytics and make recommendations onwhich types of content we should put behind the higher paywall, remember?”
Fuck. Her stomach twisted. Three sets of eyes rested on her rapidly heating face. “I completely forgot.”
“You forgot?” There was no judgment in Clara’s voice, just genuine incredulity. Her co-founder didn’t know what it looked like when Naomi dropped the ball, because Naomi never let herself drop the ball.
“Sorry.” She shoved her chair back from the table, sending ripples across the surface of her coffee. “Shit.”
“Hey,” Josh said gently, more to her than to the room. “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal.”
“Of course it’s a big deal.” Her reply was practically spitting. Didn’t he realize what this meant?
Cass and Clara exchanged a look that Naomi didn’t like at all. Worry.
How could she have let this happen? This was how it all started. Something seemingly small, innocuous. But before you knew it, she’d be forgetting to pay vendors or missing a call that led to everyone’s health insurance lapsing. How the hell had she let herself get sucked into someone else’s life? Distracted from her responsibilities. People counted on her here. They trusted her to lead.
“Let’s just plan to review it next week instead,” Clara said, folding her hands in front of her, diplomatic.
Naomi got to her feet, picking up her mug as an afterthought, an excuse. “I need a refill.”
The hallway was cooler than the conference room, at least. The hum of the A/C was stronger in her ears as she leaned against the wall, tipping her head back and taking a deep breath.
Josh followed her out, closing the door behind him with a soft click. “You—”
“Don’t start.” She tried to glare at him, but her aim must have been off, because he kept talking.
“You’re allowed to make mistakes.”
“Yeah? Says who?”
He raised his hands helplessly. “I don’t know. The universe? I’m not personally trying to govern you. I don’t have a death wish.”