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“I think I said it was your legs.”
“I can’t believe I get your anything up.”
“I know.” I swallow, breathing slowly in through my nose. “Because I was…how I was with you. You’re too good for me.” It comes out rasped.
“C’mon, angel. Don’t do that. If you’re doing that, you must be scared. And if you’re scared, you shouldn’t be.”
My chest feels too tight, because I don’t know what I can say—to make him understand where I am. What’s at stake for me.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
I catch his gaze before turning left onto the highway, and I decide it doesn’t. Nothing matters but him—being in this moment with him. At least until I can’t anymore.
Josh
He’s wearing sunglasses, so I can only really see his mouth. The way he bites the side of his cheek, then chews his lower lip. His hands move on the wheel, flexing and gripping and repeating.
There’s something going on with him. I guess he’s stuck in his head, although I can’t guess why. He’s such a prickly porcupine, and so closed off, maybe it’s a big strain for him to be as close with someone as he was with me last night. I tell myself not to worry about it, just focus on snapping him out of it.
I tap his upper arm. “Give me your hand.”
He hesitates for just a second before reaching toward me. He sort of hits me in the pec, which means he’s got his eyes locked on the road; I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to look at me.
I wrap his hand in both of mine. “Does that feel good?” I ask him softly.
“Yeah.” It’s raspy.
“This is the football hand, huh?” I turn it palm up and run my fingertips over its callouses. “Does it get sore sometimes? Strained or whatever?”
He nods.
“What do you do for that?” I massage the palm, and he gives a soft groan.
“Fuck,” he groans. “Maybe that.”
“Yeah?” I rub between his thumb and forefinger.
“Damn, man.”
“A little tight?” I whisper.
“Always.”
I massage, and he breathes deeper. I don’t keep it up for long, because it might be hard for him to drive while I do it. I bring his hand down to my thigh and put mine over it.
My hand almost covers his. I trace the veins on the back side of his hand; one runs between his knuckles.
“I love your hands.”
There’s a beat of silence before he answers—a beat in which my heart flip-flops with fear that he’ll back out of all this, leave me to fall on my face again. When he speaks, his voice is soft. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Relief. “The knuckles and the veins. Hands…legs, throats. Those are my thing.”
“Things,” he says, and I’m relieved to see the twitch of a smirk.
His hand spreads out on my quad, squeezing lightly. “This is one of mine,” he says. “So damn thicc.”
I want to ask if he’s ever been with anyone but me. Not because I think I have a right to know—but so I’d have something to grab hold of. I feel like I’m falling through thin air alone. I’ve felt like this for so long with him. Even though last night was a damn dream, the fact that he’s acting cooler today scares me.
“Whatcha thinking, Millsy?”
I laugh. “I’m scared of you, too, you know.”
His face sobers. “You should stay away from me.”
“Why?” I can’t say it louder than a whisper.
He smiles at me. It’s the saddest smile I’ve ever seen from anyone. It feels gentle, like he’s giving me bad news with only his lips and cheek.
“Because I’m not a good guy.” He smiles again, this one just a fraction better. “I’m not like you.”
“Dude, I’m not a good guy either. I’m just normal.”
“I am sorry,” he says. His tone is heavy, musing, like he’s mulling over his regrets. “I’m sorry I was such a fucking dick to you. If I could, I would go back and change that.”
“Could you, though?” It’s the kind of stupid, pseudo-philosophical question my brain churns up all the time. Could he—in a hypothetical, time-machine scenario—change how he acted?
He looks pensive. “That depends, I guess. On what else I could change.”
“Do you have a lot of stuff you’d want to re-do if you could? In this hypothetical time-machine scenario?”
“What do you think?” he says flatly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know all that much about you. Even though I want to,” I add.
He gives me nothing. This is why I’m so off-kilter. I watch as he adjusts his grip on the wheel and navigates into the middle lane of traffic. He grabs his phone off his lap and frowns down at it. “Get off here in twelve more miles. That sound familiar?”
“Yeah. You don’t need the GPS, though. I can get you there.”
He nods once and stares out at the road for a while. “Feel free to play some music.” He hands me the plug-in for an iPhone.
