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“Because you’re worried about me,” she said, flatly.
He sighed. “Because I’m worried about you. Because I care about you. Because we both know you’re strong enough to face whatever life has to throw at you, but because it’s easier with someone by your side. Even if it’s just for tonight, let me be that person.”
He leaned in, and he could feel her tense. “I want to worship you.”
Every part of her body seemed to relax at once.
He pressed his advantage. “I don’t want to hold you back. I want to help you soar.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MINA LOOKED AT the beautiful man beside her. The beautiful sleeping man beside her. Well, he deserved his rest. He’d taken her mind off the unknown number of people who knew her secret, and he’d helped her feel wanted. Back when she’d been diagnosed and there had been a flurry of telling people she thought needed to know—family members, roommates, friends and officials at school, plus that awful call to her patient zero—there had also been a flurry of rejections. Some, like her cousin, were mild. A few had made Brook look compassionate. Most had been tinged with the sense that she’d gotten what she deserved by being stupid enough to have unprotected sex.
As if diseases or cancers had innocent victims and deserving victims, and it was up to the general public to decide who was who and save their sympathy for the former.
Since then she’d been able to pick and choose whom she told, and mostly the tells had gone better. Rejections and judgments were still intermingled among the hugs, but the volume was lower and so easier to ignore. She could concentrate on the acceptance.
Now the bombardment of judgment would begin again. It had been hard the first time. It would be harder the second.
This time, she had someone standing beside her.
Levi snored quietly in his sleep. If she looked closely, Mina wondered if she could see his stubble growing. All the hard edges of his face softened in his sleep, and he looked so peaceful that she wanted to stay next to him, under the covers forever.
His open desire had been a gift, and she intended to use it. As he’d worshipped her body, he’d given her more than orgasms; he’d given her confidence. No matter what, he said he’d stick by her. From that bridge she had wanted to shove him off, even.
That had been what he meant by faith.
She pushed the sheets off her body and swung around to get her feet onto the floor, her toes nestling into the carpet. Levi had meant what he’d said; she believed that, though she also wondered if he’d be able to stick to his big words once he saw the actual fallout of what she intended to do. Standing by someone during a possible shunning was easier said than done.
As she took a deep breath, filling her lungs with cool air, she looked back over at him. The great gift of his confidence was that she wanted him to stick by her side, but she knew she’d be okay if he didn’t. Even if Levi couldn’t stick by her, that didn’t mean the end of, well, the end of anything but her relationship with Levi.
And that would make her sad, but it wouldn’t devastate her. She’d move on, find another lover, and it would be okay. That man wouldn’t be Levi, but the HIV wouldn’t kill her and neither would people knowing about her HIV.
The chill air raised goose bumps on her bare shoulders. That realization scared her, but it also made it easier to have faith in Levi. In us, as he had asked her to. She could believe.
And if she believed in us, then she could believe in a future.
She could take control over who knew. She could make sure everybody knew.
Mina slipped out of bed, careful not to wake the gorgeous man sleeping beside her. Then she wrapped a robe around her and padded down the hall to her office. At her desk, she got out her sketchbook and laid out her pencils and erasers. And pens, in case she hit perfection on the first try.
For a scary ten seconds, she stared at the blank paper. Her hand gripped the pencil like a claw, frozen and impractical for her purpose. But then she took a deep breath and drew the first curve in a body. She drew the second curve, then the third, then the fourth. When she had a full outline of a person, the sandbags in her mind burst and the rest of the panel came easily. The twin beds in the dorm room. The piles of clothes on the floor and the Einstein poster on the cinder-block walls. A small fridge under the window, filled with beer and cheese and nothing else.
