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And here he was just handing all this over. Making it okay to use as much as I wanted. Expecting me to just accept a huge pile of stuff like I’d won some kind of drugstore lottery.
Guilt climbed up my gut and into my throat and being taken care of suddenly didn’t feel so easy or appealing. A glass of water and a band-aid, okay, but there were limits. There fucking had to be. “I don’t need all this.”
“Yeah you do. It’s important.”
I shook my head. “Then I’ll pay you back.”
“No.No.I don’t want that.” He sounded a little frustrated, but he was gonna end up a lot more frustrated if he couldn’t stop being nice to me.
“Well—” I pulled open the top drawer of the dresser where I’d taped my brick of cash underneath this morning, ready to playPrice is Rightand guess how much I needed to count out for all this stuff, and I froze. No joke, block-of-ice solid.
On one side of my drawer were a couple slim stacks of my worn out shorts and tshirts, looking embarrassingly grunge, but clean and soft after a tumble through his laundry. And on the other side, making my shit look positively ill, were socks and underwear and tshirts, all bright white and still in the ten-packs. Folded around cardboard, sealed in plastic, never been touched, brand fucking new.
There was a lot, and there was too much, and there was so aggressively generous in the most goddamn wholesome way I felt like I was going to puke, and that’s where we were.
“You bought me socks,” I finally heard myself say, like that covered it, and the words squeezed so tight through my throat I didn’t think there was any way he could understand me.
Not just socks.Everything.It was nice shit, too, not the cheapest on the rack at the cheapest store around. Thick cotton. Straight seams. Labels that would last. I could feel how nice it was through the plastic without even touching it.
I had a secret hard on for bright, shiny new stuff, yeah, but even my dick was overwhelmed. I didn’t get gifts like this. Not on birthdays, not for Christmas, not from the box with the frozen turkey and canned yams and graham crackers that showed up on the porch around Thanksgiving some years from the Maddox “Sorry You’re Poor” Committee. Straight up never. And I didn’t go around feeling sorry for myself about it either, but Jesus Christ.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said, and it was clear he thought I was gonna unload some rage or who knows what. “I just… I know I rushed you out of the house fast yesterday and I didn’t really give you much chance to grab your things. I wanted you to have enough stuff. I wasn’t trying to do anything creepy like tell you what to wear, I just got some extras of what you already had. If—”
I turned around and when he was so much closer than I expected, I grabbed the front of his shirt tight in my fists and just held on, not sure if I wanted to yank him closer or shove him away or punch him or tear his clothes off or what. It wasn’t even him buying all the stuff that got to me. Not just that, anyway. It was how somehow, without even sounding like a lie, he acted like it was his fault I didn’t bring enough with me, not like I didn’t have enough to begin with.
When he put his arms around me, wrapped them across my shoulders, soft at first and then pulling me in, I just let him. Because I was tired. Because it felt good. Because I wanted to be taken care of so badly that new socks and underwear made me fall apart.
“It’s okay.” He put his hand on the back of my head and held me there against his shoulder, my fists still knuckling into his chest. “Everything’s okay.”
“You bought me socks,” I said again, and they didn’t even sound like real words, just some noises I couldn’t stop repeating.
“Yeah. You needed some things. I’m gonna make sure you have what you need from now on. So sit down and let’s take a look at your head, okay?”
My whole body was on argue mode, I was pretty sure, but it just wasn’t working. I didn’t want presents and food and attention, I didn’t want to be talked to like a fucking baby, exceptyes I fucking did,and that tug-of-war shut me down, at least for a minute. I just nodded and let him walk me over to the edge of the bed and sit me down.
He sat down beside me, and I was still and quiet, letting him hold my face and brush back my hair and repeat everything he’d done yesterday, pressing a new band-aid up against my hairline.
“There. That’s better. Try not—”
It was like I came back to life with a fucking explosion and finally my body knew what it wanted to do, and I cut him off with my lips, kissing him hard. I had no idea how to deal with the reality of someone being so good to me, especially someone who really shouldn’t want to. But when I took my brain out of the equation, allIwanted to do was get back in bed with him.
He seemed pretty okay with that, his hand sliding along my jaw, shaking when his fingers curled around the back of my neck, just expert level kissing shit and I was here to learn, letting him kiss and suck and tease and bite and take me all the way over until I was dizzy.
We worked our way up onto the mattress a little at a time, and finally he yanked my shirt up over my head and shoved me down, starting to lean in over me when he stopped and pulled back.
“You’re hurt,” he said, and his voice was soft and dark at the same time as he looked me up and down, and this was the fucked up part, I could feel it. The part that liked seeing where I was broken so he could fix me.
Yeah. Those eyes, that voice, I was into it.
I looked down to see whatever he was seeing, and eyeballed a big scrape across my hip, probably from landing wrong under somebody, that I hadn’t even realized was there. A red mark from pads rubbing the same spot over and over that was there every season.
I had a million tiny cuts and bumps and scars and bruises, from football and plenty of other shit. They showed up loudest after practice, once my body settled down from pumping adrenaline and showering, but I never really paid that much attention unless something really hurt.
He did, though. He was payingallhis attention, just maxing out on me until I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cover myself up or get naked so he could look the rest of me over.
“I’m okay,” I told him. “These aren’t real injuries.”
“Who takes care of you?” he asked, and I didn’t know how I was supposed to answer. I wasn’t even sure it was a real question.
