What I Should Have Done ✓

Chapter 39

John unlocked the door which opened with a squeak. He entered first and threw his duffel bag into a corner before I followed suit behind him, closing the door behind me and taking my shoes off at the front door. The small living room we were standing in was neat, but the air was stale like no one had been here in months. To the right stood a heavy, dark brown leather couch on which we threw our coats, beside it a recliner, and to the left right beneath the window a loveseat of the same set. The carpet was a dirty beige—not a color I would have picked. Older pictures of John, his brother, and his parents lined the walls.

"I wish you'd look at me as fascinated as you're looking at the cabin right now." When I drew my gaze to him, John grinned.

"Please," I retorted, "as if I don't. We both know I suck at hiding my feelings."

"You're actually much too good at it. Good enough to fool Liam." I winced. "Too soon?"

He had earned himself a dirty look. "Jerk. I feel awful enough about it."

Slowly and with the elegance of a mountain lion, he approached me and pushed me against the front door, his forearms caging me. "Stop beating yourself up. He's a douche."

I sighed, softly wrapping a hand around his wrist. "He's not. You just don't like him."

"Though that's correct, he's still a douche. He manipulated you—"

"John, enough," I gently interrupted him. "We've been through this, even before we were together, and it never leads anywhere. I'm not here to discuss my ex-boyfriend with you."

"Thank fucking goodness," he rasped. The last word came out muffled as he kissed the skin my gray off-shoulder sweater revealed.

John towered over me in the most tempting way. Yet, my heart hammered not only from infatuation, but from nerves. I wasn't stupid, I knew what he had come out here to this remote cabin for.

It was surreal I was here with John, but then lots of things had changed in the past two weeks, since I had broken up with Liam and we had gotten together. I had told Jessica the day after our first-aid girls' night. She had been proud of me for taking responsibility, and the two of them had gotten to know each other better over several group dinners. She knew I genuinely liked him and being with him was good for me which was an enormous difference to being with Liam, no matter how good of a guy he was. At the first pregame I had been to in a long time, Greg and Linh had squealed and high-fived each other when John had kissed me hello. Aidan had shaken his head and grinned. Devin, who had known the longest out of anyone, had donned a smug grin the entire night, but was secretly thrilled for his best friend and happy to see me more often again.

John's mouth on my collarbone pulled me back to the sweet present. I ran a hand through his hair and wiggled out from underneath him. "We should start cooking dinner before it gets late." John sighed before following me into the kitchen where he started unpacking the grocery bag he'd brought in from the car.

***

"Stay put, I'll get it." John's tone was firm as he started to clear the table. When we had finished dinner, it was already 9 pm.

Regardless of his command, I stood and turned on the kitchen sink to run dishwater.

"Grace, you don't have to do that. Let me take care of you," he whined.

"That's sweet of you. But I don't need you to take care of me. I need you to grab a dish towel and dry this," I replied, waving the first plate in front of him.

Sighing, he took it and started drying. Washing the dishes had always been my job at home in light of our eternally to-be-fixed dishwasher. I could do it fast, thoroughly, and in my sleep. I probably had done it in my sleep a couple of times after a midnight snack when I had been pulling a late night studying for high school finals.