Free Teaching Willow: Session One by Paige James Page A

together.  “What do you say?  Ren and Stimpy reruns?”  His smile is the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. And I love this side of him.  It’s another thing we share in common that he and Sage don’t—our love for zany old cartoons.  Although it’s silly, it feels like yet another tether that ties me to him, something else to connect my soul to his. 
    “I’ll get the cream cheese,” I say around my beaming smile and nodding head.
    When I return with the tub of cream cheese and a knife, Ebon has laid out the bagels on napkins and peeled off the lids of our coffee.  Without asking, he dumps one cream and two sugars into mine, sticks a stirring straw in it and slides it across the table to me.  He does it so absently that it makes my heart melt.  I’ve had breakfast with him and my sister a couple of times, but I wouldn’t have imagined he’d remember how I take my coffee.  Yet he did.  And I’m sure it seems more precious to me than what it actually is.  Because it seems pretty damn precious!
    I turn on the television and flip through the few channels that might be airing the shows that we watch together. It’s kind of like our thing. One of them anyway.  One of the many, many little things that I can’t overlook, can’t get out of my mind.
    “No Ren and Stimpy,” I proclaim, not bothering to keep the disappointment from my voice.  But then I stumble upon something nearly as good.  I gasp. “Ohmigod! It’s Pinky and the Brain!”
    I turn wide, happy eyes on Ebon, who is watching me rather than the screen.  His gaze is soft and his head is tilted, and my heart does a little skip-thump-skip when his lips pull up on one side into the sexiest grin in the world.
    “Something else we have in common,” he says.  “I didn’t know you were a fan.”
    I strive for nonchalance, anything to keep him from seeing how my eyes want to water because this— this thing between us—can never be.  “Oh, hell yeah.  I used to call Sage ‘Pinky’,” I admit candidly.
    Ebon’s laugh is a surprised bark.  “And she wasn’t insulted?”
    “Who Sage?  Not likely.  I’m pretty sure she didn’t even get that I was insulting her.”  I blush after the words are out. I’m sure it made me sound catty to refer to Sage’s…less than stellar intellect in such a nasty way.  “Not that she’s stupid or anything,” I quickly amend. “She’s just…just…  I didn’t mean it to sound like I’m more…”
    Shit!  Now I’m digging myself a hole.
    Ebon winks knowingly at me.  “No, I know what you meant.”
    “Good because that wasn’t a very nice thing to say.”
    Ebon studies me, his eyes roaming over my face.  “If I start calling you Pinky, you’ll know that it has nothing to do with how smart you are, but everything to do with the way you blush so easily.”
    As if on cue, my cheeks burn all the hotter.  “My face knows you’re talking about it,” I blurt, laughing as I point to what I know is my beet red skin.
    Ebon’s smile widens.  “Then I need to talk to it more often.”
    Please do!
    We fall silent, staring at one another, Ebon a mere twelve inches from me.  The longer the silence stretches, the louder my heartbeat becomes. I know he can hear it. I just know it.
    I lick my suddenly dry lips and Ebon’s eyes drift down to my mouth.  They stay there for an inordinately long period of time before rising back to lock on my gaze. 
    “Willow,” he says quietly.  It’s amazing what one word, what two short syllables can do to my insides.  In my name, I hear so much.  So much that has to be my imagination.  I’m not the one he wants.  Sage is.  But if he did… oh god, if he did…
    I let out the breath I’ve been holding and I hold Ebon’s stare.  From the corner of my eye, I see his hand rise a few inches off his leg, as if he is going to touch me, but then it falls back again.  Only seconds later, a frown flits across his forehead and then