“Oh?” I ask before holding my breath.
“I started painting again, recently. After one of our conversations.”
“You did?” I don’t know why my stomach flips with something like a little kick of delight, but it does.
“Yeah, and it was good. Fun. Made me feel… free.”
“Did you paint the sky? At night?”
“I did.”
“I’d… I’d like to see it. Maybe you could send me a photo.” There’s something about making this request that prompts me to lift my hands off Loncey’s head finally and move to the sink to wash the oil off my skin. It feels like I’m asking such a personalquestion and at the same time being so physically close is just too much for me. Or maybe, for them.
“Or you could come by my place and see it?” they offer, coming to stand behind me in the mirror and inspecting their roots. “After the conference is all done, I could drive you back to my place. If you like.”
In the mirror, my eyes find Loncey’s. In my peripheral vision I can see how my movements slow down as our eye contact intensifies. A warmth rises in me unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. It’s like excitement and anticipation and comfort all mixed up together and it’s made of something soft and light, like cotton wool, as it expands and fills my upper body. It has me wanting to lean back against their body. It has me wanting to take their hand and pull them into a big hug. It has me wanting to tip my head back and press my lips against theirs.
“Maybe,” I say, and I am stunned by how nonchalant I sound when I just felt what I just felt.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Loncey
Ican’t sleep. We turned the lights off long ago, but still I can’t sleep.
Maybe it’s the nap I took. Maybe it’s because I still keep thinking about Harley and after Miko’s latest update, it doesn’t seem like she’s calmed down much. Or maybe it’s because of the tossing and turning Irish woman in the bed next to me.
And I don’t mean it’s her fidgeting and rolling over that is keeping me awake. It’s more her. Justher. I’m aware of everything she does. My ears are tuned to hear just how heavy her sighs are. And my body is doing all the things I wish it wouldn’t do, pumping blood in all the wrong directions when I think about her hands on my scalp less than an hour ago, about her thoughtful little pouts as we talked all day and nearly all night, and the way I saw that mole and the natural blush in her cheeks again after she’d taken her make-up off.
While I feel safer having an erection in the comfort of my own bed, I still feel like I’m betraying some of the trust between us. Maeve is fast becoming someone I’d like to keep in touch with, to build a real friendship with, and it feels like experiencing a one-sided sexual pull to her is disrespectful to that bond.
Maybe I just need to masturbate. It’s been a few days.
I grip my hard-on through my boxer shorts and squeeze as hard as I can, relishing the surge of sensation it gives me. But then I immediately let go.
Because Jesus, not now.
Another sigh, and another rustle of bedclothes fills my ears as she rolls over in bed yet again.
“Can’t sleep?” I call out.
It’s dark enough in the room that I can only make out the outline of her body as she sits up in bed and rests her back against the padded headboard.
“I’m in my head again,” she says with a soft grunt.
“About the keynote?”
“Yeah,” she says, and her voice sounds so small, so sad, it takes some considerable effort not to jump out of bed and reach out for her and pull her into my arms.
But that’s fucking ridiculous. Maeve is not one of my friends who I’ve already established a close physical relationship. And Maeve definitely doesn’t need saving.
“Wanna talk about it?” I turn onto my side and prop my head up, facing her.
“We’ve been talking about it all fecking afternoon.” she sighs again. “I just… I just want it over with. It’s making me stressed out and I hate getting stressed out.”
“What normally helps when you get stressed out?”
There’s a silence I don’t expect.
