Hold Me Close Read online

  “It’s very old-fashioned,” she explained to him over a plate of decent pasta with garlic and olive oil. “That’s all.”

  Mitchell grinned. “What can I say? My mama raised me right.”

  “She did.” Effie returned his grin, which was surprisingly naughty, considering what a gentleman he was claiming to be. “It’s nice. Just...”

  “Makes you uncomfortable?”

  She nodded after a second, her grin twisting slightly to become a grimace. “I’m sorry...”

  “It’s okay. But I like to,” Mitchell said. “In case you think it was a pain in the butt or something. It’s not. I like to do it.”

  “It makes me feel helpless,” Effie blurted and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  Mitchell looked surprised, then concerned. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Forget it.” Effie twirled the pasta on her fork, pressing it into her spoon’s deep bowl. It was an old trick, to make an elaborate show of eating to hide the fact she’d taken no more than a couple bites.

  “No. I don’t want to forget it. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable with me, Effie. I’m really sorry if anything I did made you feel that way.”

  Shit. Now she’d gone and done it. Brought out the white knight in him.

  “It’s just a thing I have. It’s...really... I don’t want to talk about it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  Mitchell sat back in his chair with a frown. “Okay.”

  She changed the subject, effortlessly, she thought. They ordered dessert. She wanted coffee but sipped a mug of hot tea. She’d demurred about cake, saying she was stuffed.

  He hit her with it in the car, the ignition running but still in Park. “You didn’t eat. You said you were full, but you didn’t eat anything.”

  “I ate.” She heard the defensiveness in her voice and softened it. “I wasn’t that hungry.”

  The loud growl of her stomach at that inopportune moment proved she was a liar. Effie pressed a hand to her belly and looked Mitchell straight in the eyes. Daring him to comment.

  Most men would’ve let it pass, but she supposed most men wouldn’t have noticed. Mitchell tapped the wheel, looking away from her. He sighed.

  “My sister’s anorexic. She’s been hospitalized for it a couple times. I know the tricks.” He looked at her. “I noticed it the first few times we went out, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make you feel weird about it, and you don’t look... Shit. I know that you don’t have to look any certain way, but...”

  “I don’t have anorexia. Or bulimia.” The words came out with the sharp edge of an addict swearing she didn’t need the high. Effie pressed her lips together for a second before adding, “I have a thing about food. Yeah. But it’s not an eating disorder, at least not the kind you’d think.”

  “I see.”

  He could not see, of course. Not without a long and detailed explanation that Effie was in no way ready to provide. She put her hands in her lap, fingers linked, and stared straight ahead. It had begun to rain again.

  “We might never get any more snow this winter,” she said. “Maybe it will all be rain from now on.”

  They didn’t say much of anything on the way to her house. Mitchell turned on the radio, which should’ve been a relief but made the silence only all the more obvious and awkward. When he pulled into her driveway, the house was blazing with light. Her mother threw a fit if you left a light on in any room you weren’t using, but only in her own house. Apparently, Effie’s electric bill wasn’t of her concern.

  Mitchell put the car in Park but left it running. He did not, as he’d done every other time, get out to go around and open her door for her. Of course she missed it as soon as he didn’t do it. Of course she couldn’t say so, not without sounding stupid.

  “Well. Good night. Thanks for dinner.” Effie put her hand on the door.

  “Effie...wait a minute.”

  She half turned. He’d apologize again now. Or try to get her to talk about “it,” whatever the it was in his brain that he thought needed discussion. She should’ve just fucked him on the first date, Effie thought. Found out what was inside those khakis and been done with it. Moved on. What had ever made her think she could be anything like normal?

  “I’m a good listener,” Mitchell said.

  Effie’s eyebrows rose. “Okay?”

  “Out of all the women I’ve met on LuvFinder, you’re the only one who doesn’t really seem to like to talk.” Mitchell gave her another of those bad-boy grins that ought to have been at odds with the rest of his persona but somehow fit him just right. “It’s kind of making me a little crazy, to be honest.”

  Effie laughed. “Oh, yeah? You like talkers?”

  “It’s not that I like them. I guess I just got used to it. We’re all on that site to find someone, right? So you get paired up by whatever algorithms they use to show you profiles, or you hunt around, stalking, until you see something you like. And you can only hope that the other person likes you, too, at least enough based on whatever clever stuff you used to fill out your profile, and then, wow, if you do get someone to say yes to a date, well...” Mitchell pushed his glasses up on his nose and shrugged. “You can only pray that you like them enough to want to ask them out again. And that they like you, too.”

  “That’s pretty much how it goes. Yeah.” On Effie’s front porch, her mother’s silhouette appeared in the doorway. “She’ll flash the light next.”

  “I guess I should kiss you quick, then,” Mitchell said and leaned across the center console before Effie could stop him.

  She let him kiss her, though, and it was as sweet and nice as it had been the other times. She wasn’t expecting him to cup the back of her head, nor for his hand on her knee, high up and higher before she put a hand on his to stop him going any higher. The kiss got harder when she did that, only for a second or so before he broke it. He didn’t move away from her.

  “That night we spent together...” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I think about it all the time.”

  Surprising heat washed over her, painting her cheeks and throat. “You do?”

  “Yeah.” His fingers inched upward, teasing. “All the time.”

  Effie kissed him again. She put her hand on his and moved it higher. His fingertips brushed between her legs, and she let out a sigh before pulling away.

  “I want to see you again,” Mitchell said.

  “Even if I don’t talk enough?”

  Mitchell smiled. “Yeah. Maybe because you don’t. It makes you mysterious. Like you’re full of dark secrets that maybe I can get you to tell.”

  “If I told you my dark secrets,” Effie said, “they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?”

  * * *

  “I thought you were never going to come home,” Mom complained when Effie at last came through the front door. “It’s late, and the weather’s getting worse. I was getting worried.”

  “I know you saw me sitting out there, Mom. You couldn’t have worried too much. I was in the driveway.”

  Her mother huffed. “I know what you were doing out there.”

  “Kissing,” Effie said to get a rise out of her. She shrugged out of her coat and hung it in the front closet. “Tongues and everything.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Felicity. For the whole world to see!”

  “They couldn’t see anything. The windows were steamed up.” Effie grinned and waggled her brows at her mother, then gave her an impromptu hug. “Thanks for watching Polly. If you don’t want to drive home, you can stay over. We can make pancakes in the morning.”

  “I like to sleep in my own bed. And I need to let the dog out.” Her mother shook her head, then gave Effie a sideways glance. “You like him?”

  “He’s ve