“How often did you see anything?” he asks, his voice dangerously low. Not the usual low, it’s deeper, raspier. Sexier.
One hand of his presses against the door right beside my head, the other lays down on my waist. I try to keep my hands to myself, but they’re moving anyway, ending on Grey’s body. My hands rest on his torso, faintly feeling the ripples of his abs press against the hoodie now that I’m flattening it against his body.
“Too many times,” I answer.
“Jealous?” His head dips further down, his lips nowalmostbrushing mine. Our noses touch, my breathing so shaky, I’m sure he can feel it.
“Furious.”
I don’t have to see it to know he’s smiling right now. But then he pulls his face away, not even leaving a soft, innocent kiss on my lips. No, instead he brings his mouth to my ear and says, “I have never fucked anyone in that house.”
“Great, I’ll be the first then.” I don’t think he’s ever going to take me there. If his father sees and recognizes me… I honestly don’t want to imagine what would happen next. My father isn’t the only one who wouldn’t approve of our relationship, if there was one. Even being friends crosses a line.
Grey straightens his back, looking at my lips rather than my eyes. He then takes a step back, that little intimate moment between us vanishing as quickly as it came.
Turning away from me, Grey’s now looking at my bed. “That’s my shirt,” he states. “Do you sleep in it?”
“Yup. But it doesn’t smell like you anymore.”
Without so much as saying a single word, Grey takes off the gray hoodie my mother made him, throwing it on my bed. A moment later, he also removes the t-shirt he wore underneath, now standing in the middle of my room without any shirt on.
The sight steals my breath for a moment there, until I realize that obsessing over a guy’s torso isn’t normal.
But that also doesn’t last very long because Grey must sense the change in my emotions. He turns around in record time, taking in my state of trying to avoid looking at him, so naturally he makes it even harder for me by walking to stand right in front of me.
He reaches for my hand, and lays it down on his torso, right over his heart. I can feel it beating against my palm, a little faster than what I believe a heartbeat should feel like.
I stare at his lips, not because I want to kiss him—which I do—but because I like his lips. They’re a soft pinkish kind of color, plump but not all too big, and they look so kissable that it almost makes me salivate. Then my gaze moves down his chin, to the tattoo on his neck.
“What does it mean?” I finally ask, running a finger over the tattoo, my other hand still firmly pressed to his chest.
Grey looks down like he doesn’t know which tattoo I’m talking about, trying to see it on his very own neck, which is very much impossible, and of course he knows what tattoo I’m talking about even if my finger wasn’t currently touching it.
“You’re just going to assume I speak Korean?” His voice is so much softer than usual, filled with so much more depth.
“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would tattoo words onto his body without knowing exactly what it says whether it was a drunken decision or not. I think you’d rather not have a tattoo than there being the potential that it either doesn’t make sense at all, or it’s some kind of insult. And I’m not assuming you’re fluent in Korean, I asked what the tattoo means.”
His lips curve up just that tiny bit. “Everything will be okay,” he says. “That’s what it means.”
I nod. “Like you and me then.” Grey slightly cocks his head but before he gets the chance to disagree, I slide my finger over to the side of his neck, right by his ear. “And this one? What does it say?”
I’m assuming it means snowflake, given that there’s one right above the letters, but I want him to tell me anyway.
“Snowflake,” he confirms. “Well, literally speaking it says snowflower, that sounds way cooler anyway. It’s a combination of words but it ends up meaning snowflake.”
“Why’d you get it?” His heart beats a little faster, or so it feels. Maybe I’m imagining things though.
“Because I like the meaning.”
“Basic answer, Grey Davis,” I say, now looking right into his eyes. “Tell me the meaning, tell me the deep reasonwhyyou got it, not the basic version of it.” I know a lot of people get tattoos for the sake of getting them, but Grey doesn’t, I don’t think. He’s more practical, more tactical. Whatever he does, he has a reason to do it, a reason to get it. “Use that pretty mouth of yours, Grey. You can talk, I know that.”
I can feel him shudder beneath my palm, and it makes me smile but for once I don’t let it show because I don’t want him thinking I’m making fun of him.
“The characteristics of a snowflake in nature are unique, hence why the term snowflake is used in reference to individuals who deem themselves unique. Or, well, special, thinking they deserve to be treated like they are, too. But that’s not why I got it. I was more set on the part that resonates with snowflakes being deserving of recognition, as well as the connotation of them being inherently fragile.”
See, that’s more like the Grey I’ve gotten to know; having deep meanings.
I want to keep on asking about each and every single one of his tattoos, but I think he has reached his maximum level of opening up for today, and that’s okay.
