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***
We’re lying curled together, facing each other. His eyes are closed, pale lashes resting on sharp cheekbones. “Next time we’re together, I’ll have condoms,” he mutters. “I just have to convince them to let me inside the drugstore.”
“Still giving you trouble?”
“What do you think?” But he doesn’t sound bitter, more like... resigned and tired.
Somehow that’s worse.
“Doesn’t Stacy work there? I thought she carried a torch for you.”
He frowns, eyes still closed. “She’s okay, but hasn’t been around much lately.”
“Lots of girls want you,” I whisper.
I don’t know why I am saying those things. Am I jealous? My body’s heavy, my thoughts jumping all over the place.
His lashes lift. “So what?”
“I bet they’d jump at the chance to be here with you.”
“Yeah, you must’ve missed the countless volunteers lining up at my door.”
“All the girls in this town, for instance.” Isn’t that what Dena implied the other day?
“It’s not like that,” he whispers. “I don’t care about other girls, and they don’t care about me, all right? They don’t give a shit, and I don’t, either.”
Something tight in my chest unclenches. I smile.
“You like me,” he breathes, voice sleepy and slurred.
This time I don’t fight it. “It shows, huh?” I try for light because I bet he’d run if he knew just how much. “I told you yesterday. I like you.” I stroke his arm. “What’s on your mind?”
“Just... that it’s different with you, I... fuck. I dunno.”
He’s rolling onto his back, turning his face away, shutting down again, and I can’t let him.
I sit up, cup his cheek. “Different, how?”
His jaw clenches. “You give a shit. That’s different.”
“That’s all, huh? That I’m a worrier?”
“No.”
“If this is because I helped you that day you fell from the roof—”
“No, that’s not... goddammit, girl. I...miss you when you’re not here.” He turns to face me, and I wonder if he can hear my pounding heart in the near silence. “I miss you every day, all the time. I like being with you. But I don’t wanna hurt you anymore.”
“You’re not,” I whisper. “You’re not hurting me. Ross... what are you saying?”
My pulse is thumping in my ears, so fast I feel faint. Is he...? Does he...?
But he just gathers me in his arms and buries his face in my neck, as he seems to like doing. “I don’t deserve good things,” he whispers. “It’s okay. I know that.”
This time I have to tell him, have to set things straight, but he kisses me, stopping the words, and then proceeds to erase all thought by going down on me and making me come so hard I pass out for the night.
***
