“No.”
Once we’d come up the elevator and into the lobby, the bright lights and cheery music made it clear I hadn’t exactly realized what I was getting myself into.
“Wow, this is so cute!” Jordy chirped out, admiring the colorful mural of ocean creatures painted along one wall as we moved to the back of the short line. It was glittery, shimmering as the overhead lighting washed over it.
There were kids here. A lot of them. I wasn’t good with kids. They were too loud, too unpredictable, and too honest. And too sticky.
But he sounded so happy and so excited. I’d been worried that going to the place he associated with his mom might make him sad. I couldn’t stand the idea of him feeling that way, so I had to make sure I didn’t ruin it for him with my… Me-ness.
“Very cute,” I agreed. He glanced over at me, and laughed.
“This isn’t really your thing, is it?”
“It’s notnotmy thing,” I said diplomatically. “I have nothing against fish.”
“I meant loud and cute and sparkly.”
Suppressing a grimace, I glanced over at a group of chattering, hyperactive kids as their parent got their tickets scanned in.
“The cute and sparkly part’s okay,” I finally said, glancing back over at Jordy. “In certain contexts.”
The corner of his pretty mouth perked up. “Just to be clear, we’re talking about me, right?”
Brat.
“Do you have to always do that?” I complained, but begrudgingly complied when he wriggled into my side and threaded his arm through mine.
“I have a compulsion where I’m forced to annoy you anytime you give me the opportunity.”
Unfortunately, when he looked so stupidly cute and cuddled me right after, forcing this warm and fuzzy feeling to bloom up inside me, it pretty much immediately canceled out the aggravation. Not that I would be letting him know that.
“At least you’re consistent.”
“Hi! Welcome to the Oldport Aquarium!” The ultra-cheery attendant reached out to scan over my phone screen, where I had our tickets pulled up. “Here’s a map of all the exhibits, and it has the times listed for any special events. Oh, and we have a special summer of love exhibit right now, it has a bunch of cool facts about how certain marine animals mate for life, and it shows off our penguin couples, and there’s a really cute wall with hearts and stuff that’s great for couple pics! You guys will love it.”
She thought we were a couple? Sure, he was clinging to my arm like a burr but who in their right mind would look at someone like him and someone like me and actually assume that? The urge to correct her, to emphatically insist that I wasn’t a deviant pervert taking advantage of him and that he’d actually been the one who initiated the blowjob rose up in me, but I bit it down.
“Thanks!” Jordy said, taking the map from her and nudging me out of line and through the turnstile. Her assumption obviously hadn’t bothered him or filled him with guilty urges to deny anything. But then again, he’d always been more emotionally stable than me.
Once we’d moved a little ways down the hall into the first room bordered by huge tanks of colorful fish, I cleared my throat.
“You sure you want to do… That?” I asked, gesturing to where he was wrapped around my arm like a vine.
“Am I bothering you?” He asked, the embarrassed, wounded look on his face like a knife in my stomach.
“No!” I answered quickly, and probably too sharply. But it was like if I didn’t make sure that he knew he wasn’t bothering me, I would instantly die. “I just mean… You’re going to be going to school here, so…”
“So people might see me and think I have a super hot, tattooed boyfriend?” He retorted, giving me an incredulous look. One ofthoselooks. “How will I ever live with the shame?”
Was it really that simple for him? I’d have given anything to be able to think of the two of us like that. To be thrilled that people actually thought I was worthy of having this bouncy little blond omega with the big blue eyes and insane body, instead of obsessing over how ridiculous the idea actually was or worrying about what I might do to eventually make him miserable.
But… We were in a bubble. The bubble of this fantasy weekend, where we could do whatever we wanted. That’s what he’d asked for, anyway. Was it okay for me to give in, on the grounds that there was no way for us to get caught? Even without that aspect I was still being a selfish prick. But I knew he didn’t feel that way.
I swallowed hard, forcing my voice to come out casual. “Well… If that’s how you feel, then I guess it’s okay. For this weekend,” I added, like that absolved me of all the sin.
“For this weekend,” he agreed innocently, blinking his long lashes at me.
What the fuck was I actually getting myself into?
