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Elliot notices. “You should get to bed, Denny.”
I shake my head. “It’s way too early. If I go to sleep now, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night.”
“At least lie down, then. You look like one of those blow-up dolls at car dealerships that fall over and then stand back up.”
“Gee,thanks.”
I do as he says though, crawling up the length of the couch and lying down right beside him. This couch, while big, was not meant to accommodate two people lying on it horizontally. I can feel the heat radiating off his body, smell the mixture of sunscreen and soap on his skin. I’mwide awakenow.
To distract myself, I keep taking sips of soda. I’ll shift, drink, move back, and repeat. The third time, my foot brushes Elliot’s leg. I yank away like I’ve been burned. He appears oblivious.
Until I finish my soda and knock the empty can over while I’m considering my next move. Bathroom trip, then go back to huddling at the end of the couch? Start crunching chips? I lean over to retrieve the can at the same time Elliot does, and I learn he’snotoblivious.
He immediately moves away, and I blurt the first thing that comes to mind. “You’re hard.”
“I’m a guy, and you’re a hot girl.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.Is it?He’s the person I would ask if a guy told me that.
Clearly he’s a guy, and I know I’m not ugly—I’ve gotten enough envious looks from girls and admiring ones from boys. But I didn’t knowElliotconsiders mehot.
I look at him and he looks right back, obviously wondering if I’m going to ask more questions. “So…what’s the plan?”
“What do you mean?” he replies cautiously.
“With our pretend relationship. Do we fake break up after I leave?”
“What? No. The whole point of this was to last weeks. Months.”
“Are you going to fake cheat on me? I mean, fake cheat on our fake relationship by actually hooking up with girls?”
He holds my gaze. “No.”
“Won’t that be…hard for you?”
He smiles, probably at my word choice, but it’s short-lived amusement. “Denny, sex isn’t like air or food. Any guy who tells you he can’t live without it is probably a liar and a cheater. Iaskedyou to do this, and people think we’re dating for real. I’d never disrespect that—disrespect you.”
Damn him. For not killing the butterflies in my stomach but encouraging them. For never leading me on, for telling me from the first day we met that he didn’t want a relationship.
I have no one to blame but myself for falling in love with him anyway. Iknewnot to fall in love with him. My stupid heart just went and did it regardless.
It’s easy to fall in love with the wrong person, to get swept up in small moments, to read more into something than you should, to ignore what doesn’t fit in the fairy tale.
But what about when you fall in love with the right person at the wrong time? When it’s the guy who makes you happy when you’re sad and stands up for you and was blessed with that V of muscles that points to a place you wonder about touching?
There will be a day when Elliot realizes there’s more to life than hockey and besting his father isn’t the secret to happiness. I don’t know if I’ll be here for it. I don’t know if I can justify waiting around for that. For years? A decade? I’ve never met a guy I like as much as Elliot, but am I really looking anymore?
“Well, we’re ‘dating,’ right?” I make sure to use air quotes when I say dating.
“Right…” Elliot’s voice is cautious, his expression assessing.
He’s your best friend. He kissed you earlier. He just called you hot, I remind myself. I reach forward and tug his mesh shorts down. He was wearing trunks earlier, so he must have changed while I was avoiding him, but he didn’t put on any boxer briefs. Shock freezes his face as his dick springs free. It’s big, not that I have much—anything—to compare it to. Hunter Crawford ground up against me for most of junior prom this past spring, though, and there wasn’t much to rub up against.
Before I lose my nerve—before he has the chance to say anything—I reposition so I can lean down and take him in my mouth. Honestly, I’ve always found the concept of a blowjob to be kind of gross, demeaning. At least with sex, you’re getting something out of it, supposedly. I wouldn’t know for sure.
Watching Elliot’s eyes blaze with heat, I get the appeal for the first time. I want to please him. I want him to enjoy this. I want him to forget every other girl who’s touched him this intimately.
My mind races as I try to remember everything I’ve ever heard my friends say about doing this, the step-by-step instructions in the magazines Lana and I would read at coffee shops in middle school. But mostly, I just rely on instinct. When I suck the tip, he groans, so I do it again. When I trace the vein that runs underneath with my tongue, his hips jerk up, so I do that again, too. I grow bolder, using my hand to grip the base and play with his balls. I’m rewarded with a raspy “Fuck.”
It affects me more than I’m expecting it to. I’ve shared a lot of personal thoughts and feelings with Elliot, and this feels just as intimate. How do people do this with strangers? With people they don’t even like?
