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He grunts, closes his eyes, his lashes dark crescents on his cheekbones. “You’ll be the death of me, Sugar Pop.”
“Nobody’s dying,” I say, but he wraps his arm more tightly around me, burying his face in my hair, producing a muffled sound. “Everything’s okay, Jet.”
“Fuck.” He clutches me to him as if afraid I’ll vanish into smoke.
“Everything’s fine.” I just hold on, feeling another shiver go through him. I wonder if I said something to set it off again.
He pulls me slowly sideways, and we lie down on the sofa, curled around each other.
“Everyone dies,” he informs me, his voice faint.
“Eventually.”
“Sometimes sooner than later.”
I pull back to look up into his face. “Are you hiding some deadly sickness from me and not telling me?”
He lets out a breath. “No. Nothing like that.”
“Good. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
His mouth finds my hair and his next breath ruffles it. “That’s what Joel always says, but life is a bitch.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “Will you tell me what happened with Joel?” I ask against his cotton-clad chest. “How did you hit your head, and why he doesn’t know you’re not feeling well? Did you two have an argument?”
“Something like that. I… pushed. I never know when to stop.” He huffs, obviously thinking his cryptic comment is enough explanation.
“And you hit your head.”
“I slipped and fell. Hitting my head was an accident. It’s not his fault.”
“Never said it was.”
I lift my hands to his crazy hair and slip my fingers through it, massaging his head. He groans, throws a leg over mine and squashes me to his chest.
“You feel so damn good,” he rasps. “Stay tonight.”
“Jet…”
“I won’t do anything. I swear to God. Just… stay.”
But I want him to do more, and I want Joel to join us, and I want so much, but the fact he’s asking me to stay, accepting my help, my touch, is already more than I could hope for.
So how could I ever say no? “Sure. Just let me text my roommate that I won’t be going home.”
But I don’t move, don’t want to move, wrapped up in his warmth, in his strong arms, sleep stealing over me like a thief.
***
A faint noise jolts me awake. I blink blearily into the dimness. Shapes materialize around me—walls, a floor lamp, a low table, an armchair.
Someone is sitting in that armchair, elbows propped on his knees, hands clenched in his hair. A man, from the breadth of his shoulders, the square cut of his jaw.
Joel. I think. I squint at him and reach for my glasses, which I’ve left on the coffee table. I slip them on and look again.
Oh yeah, it’s him.
“He’d totally get off watching us.” Jet’s words blow through my mind like a hot breeze.
