“You’re right. I’m sorry. Okay? It won’t happen again.”
I shoot him a glare. Searching his eyes, looking for pity or disgust. Wanting to see if he’s changed his mind, or his opinion on me. I don’t find any of that. He’s just looking back at me with those forest green eyes.
“Okay,” I mumble. He leans in, but I put a hand to his face, stopping him. “I have to brush my teeth.”
“No, you don’t, come he—”
I push him away, and get up. He groans behind me but follows me into the bathroom.
I don’t want to look at myself in the mirror, afraid of what I’ll see but I catch my reflection anyway. I’m shocked to realize I look the same as yesterday, before everything. I almost expected to see my skin split open, my organs on full display. Like a roadkill.
I brush my teeth, and I glance at Kaden for a second before I pull out the box in the bathroom drawer, putting everything on the sink. I glance at him again, searching for some kind of reaction but it doesn’t come. He’s just brushing his teeth,looking back at me before he spits in the sink, and rinses the toothbrush.
So, I turn the faucet on, bend down, and wash my face. My hands are trembling a little as I apply the moisturizer, and the eye cream. And when I turn around, Kaden looks at me.
“Ready?” he says.
“Yeah.”
He takes a step forward, hooking his arms behind my thighs and lifts me up on the counter, and kisses me. He licks into my mouth, tangling his tongue with mine, and he tastes like mint and salvation.
I place my hands on the back of his head, deepening the kiss. I want it all. I want him. And I want him to still want me, too. In any way I can have him.
He breaks the kiss with a groan, giving me a beard burn as he nuzzles into my cheek. “Fuuuck, your whole face smells like that now.”
He continues nuzzling down my neck, and presses my hips closer to him. “Does lube work in water?” he mumbles against my skin.
“Silicon-based, yeah.”
He pulls back, looking at me. “And that’s what you’ve got?”
“Yeah?”
He takes a step back, pulling his hoodie off. “Then get into the shower.”
I chuckle. “But then I have to do all of that again.” I gesture vaguely at the sink.
“Well,” he grins, unbuttoning his pants. “Then I guess we better call work, let them know we’ll be here for a while.”
60
Kaden
IhatethatIdon’t know if Seth’s hands were trembling from the sex, or from being afraid of what I’d say about it when he reapplied the face cream. I saw that they were shaking the first time, and I hated that too.
I can’t even imagine how fucking exhausted he must be, trying to keep himself together when everything he does, everything he says is planned out beforehand. Straight acting, he called it. How fucked up is that?
I can’t even imagine what a fucking hell life must’ve been for him during those years to cause him to change everything about himself. If I ever get my hands on those people, I’m afraid of what I’d do.
I know some kids in my school were bullied, too. I know it happens, and I know most of us don’t do anything when it happens. I know I’m guilty of that.
I’ve seen kids being shoved into lockers, or having their lunch money stolen, or being the last to be picked in PE. I’ve seen that, and I didn’t do anything about it. And I was one of many who didn’t.
And thinking about that now makes me feel so awful and ashamed, I feel nauseous. And if I let my mind go there, if I really let it wander down the dark path, I get all cold. It makes me terrified to think that Seth could’ve been one of those kids who thought that this was all life had to offer, and that it wasn’t worth living. And I can’t think about that without wanting to cry, or punch something, or throw up.
I glance at Seth by his station, and I feel like I won the fucking lottery. He’s the best person I know, and I can’t imagine my life without him. And I can’t for the fucking life of me understand how a person who can light up a room by just entering it, can have such a miserable past. If that’s not strength, then I don’t know what that is.
How he thinks I could ever see him as weak is a fucking mystery to me.
