“You just left.”
“Twenty-five minutes ago.”
“Impossible,” I murmur as she marches inside, forces me up and out of her bed and into the bathroom. I sniff the air like a bloodhound. “The pizza’s here!” Also like a bloodhound, I feel like howling about it.
“You can’t have any until you shower.”
“Aww, Nomi—please? Please, I’mso hungry.” I hear myself whining like a small, dejected child. A truly pathetic, starving child. ToNomi Wyeth.First for kissing, and now for pizza. And yet, I continue to do it without an iota of shame as she unbuttons my tattered shirt swiftly and throws it in her hamper. I can’t stop thinking about the pizza, about Nomi holding it to her mouth, biting it, cheese stretching—
Oh damn. The boner’s back.
“Jesus, Julian!” She throws her hand over her eyes.
“I think it’s from the pizza!” I wail. “A slice will make it go away!”
And that’s how I end up naked eating pizza in Nomi Wyeth’s shower, her hand holding a slice beyond the curtain to my face while I dutifully wash all my cuts.
It may have taken a lot of negotiation to get me into the shower, but it takes almost as much to get me out. I like arguing with Nomi too much—always have. Ultimately, I use up all her hot water before I’m willing to leave the haven of girl-smelling steam I’ve created from using all her products. But the cold water hits me like a slap in the balls, and shrieking, I finally step back out and wrap myself in the giant fluffy towel she left for me. I huddle within its luxe terrycloth embrace, smiling dazedly as I exit the bathroom like a lavender-scented Sith Lord fresh from the spa.
Nomi glances up from her floor, where she’s sitting cross-legged with a plate of pizza, and laughs.
“Why are you doing that thing with your face?” She makes a swirly gesture at her own mouth. “That… smiling thing.”
“It’s just, everything’s sonicehere.” I nuzzle in the towel. “Your comforter, your towels, this bed.” I heave myself onto it in a running jump,then groan happily. “It’s like a hotel made of you. I’d never leave if home was this nice.”
Nomi shrugs. “Creature comforts are how I get by.”
“What do you mean?”
“I… don’t get out much,” she finishes suddenly, as though she almost said something else but changed her mind. “Home needs to be special when you spend so much time in it.”
Nomi dabs Neosporin on the long scratches on my back I can’t reach, which Itrynot to get a boner about. I cannot develop a Pavlovian boner response to the smell of antibiotic ointments in my profession. Then, when I get stuck because of my bum arm, she helps pull her fresh T-shirt over my head. It’s super soft, like everything in her world, and fits me skintight. She sucks a breath in when she sees my left arm.
“Julian… is your arm supposed to be that color?”
I glance down at the angry purple streak painting my forearm. “Hmm,” I muse, noting how big it’s grown since I took the shower. “Nope.”
Nomi winces. “Should we call Dr. Appa?”
“That stoner?” I snort. “Nah. It’s fine.”
It’s definitely not fine. But it doesn’t really hurt and also… I just don’tcare?My head feels thick and pleasant, my stomach ravenous, and my entire body, inexplicably, the shade ofpink. And all that matters right now isbeing hereandeating pizzaandmmm.Nestled next to Nomi on her couch, housing my sixth slice, and talking animatedly about every random thing that pops into my brain feels like life on an alien planet and yet simultaneously, like an inevitability my entire life has been moving toward. I feelgood. I feelhappy. And, judging by the way Nomi’s laughing against my side, not atalldisgusted with my company, she feels the same way, too.
My God, Eric wasright.
That intelligent bastard was a hundred percent right, Ishouldask Nomi out! The kiss alone is proof there’s something magical between us, and stoned or not, this has been the best night of my life.
“Julian?” Nomi pokes me in the side. “You okay?” She’s been watching me closely, taking care of me through my drug-fueled stupor, and when she ribs me, it feels playful and kind.
Is this what dating Nomi would be like? Nights on her plush couch, watching TV with the volume low so we can talk over it, eating pizza and laughing and—and—
Getting high?
The thought punches me straight in the stomach.
“I can’t,” I blurt out.
Nomi frowns. “Can’t what?” Andfuck, even her frown is beautiful. The gentle furrow between her brows, her sharp, inquisitive eyes, the quiet demand she places on the universe to explain itself because she has a right to know. She looks at me like she wants to understand me, and dammit if it doesn’t make me feel like the most important man in the world.
