“Hey.”
“I, uh, yeah.”Real articulate, Porter.
I leaned over and touched my mouth to his, because I felt like I’d explode if I didn’t.Kissing someone washard when you were grinning like an idiot.I pulled back to look at him, our noses just touching.
“Do you have to work today?”I said.
“No.”
“Neither do I.I got a gig tonight, but it doesn’t start till eight thirty.We’ve got all day, Eddie.”
I kissed him again and rolled him onto his back, and he let me, and I straddled him and gazed at him lying under me, all of him, and I touched him, smoothing his T-shirt over his belly, then rumpling it.
“You’re so solid.”I kissed him again.“Are you real?Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming.”
God, his voice.I felt it buzzing at the back of my neck and in the beds of my fingernails, and I wanted his voice in my mouth so much I kissed him again, like I was diving deep inside him, and I let my weight down onto him, and I pressed against his hip bone, and fuck, nothing in my life ever felt so good.
The whole time I was thinking that, my body was doing its own thing, and all of a sudden, it let me know I was about to shoot when it was way too late for me to stop, and I shot all over us.
I pulled back.“Sorry.”
I reached over to the bedside table and grabbed a handful of tissues from the box I hadn’t used in over a year, and I wiped him off, but...“I got it on your shirt, too.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said, grabbing the hem of his shirt.
I realized he was about to take it off, and I panicked, jumped off the bed, and turned my back to him, pulling clean clothes out of the bureau.Then I booked it into the shower.Because I didn’t want to see him with his shirt off.I couldn’t explain why—it just felt wrong.
I didn’t know what to tell him, but after I got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed, he was still in the bedroom, sitting up in bed.He hadn’t taken his shirt off, so I guess he’d figured out I didn’t want that.
I wanted to make it up to him so much.“Why don’t I make us a hot breakfast while you have a shower?”I said.
“Sure.”
In the kitchen, I made buttermilk pancakes from scratch and fried bread and bacon and scrambled eggs, and I was making fresh orange juice when he walked into the kitchen.
“Wow,” he said quietly, with a cute little eyebrow bob.“That looks good.”He sat at the table.
“Youlook good.”I put the pitcher of juice on the table, and then I put my hand over his heart and kissed him.His hair was still wet.
As we were eating, I said, “The weather’s nice.You want to go for a walk?”
“Sure.”
It was beautiful outside.September had taken the edge off the heat.I was sorry summer was over, because we could have done so many things as a couple.In the park, the leaves were rustling, and the branches of the trees creaked in the breeze, and I was walking close to him, brushing against him, and I really, really wanted to hold his hand.This is my life now.And I never want it to end.I felt sorry for everyone in the park who wasn’t as happy as I was right then.
We followed a path into the trees, and I looked behind me to make sure we were alone, then I put my arm around him, and he put his arm around me.
“I’m kinda excited again,” I said.
“Me too.I’m a little backed up.”
Oh, right.I’d been a selfish idiot.I hadn’t done anything for him.
Thing was, it was hard for me to believe he wanted me too.I mean, obviously he did, or he wouldn’t still be here.But on some level, I felt like he was just humoring me.
“Sorry,” I said.“You knocked me sideways so hard I didn’t think to look after you.”
