Chapter Twenty-Six
It was weird seeing him brush his teeth in my bathroom. Weird seeing him walk, wearing nothing but his briefs, from there to the bedroom. Weird, indeed, to have him slip underneath the sheets, instead of waiting on top of them for us to fuck.
I didn’t know what name to put on what we were doing. Nothing quite seemed right, at least not yet. A good half of the struggle, it turned out, was trying to be okay with that uncertainty.
“Should I set an alarm?” I asked him, fingers poised over my phone.
Kai propped himself up on his elbow. “Do you need to be somewhere in the morning?”
I shook my head.
“Me neither.”
I rolled over to put the phone down, and then turned back to him. There was still something vaguely shocking about finding his smiling face looking back at me.
“Are you freaking out again?”
I smiled, embarrassed that I was so easy to read. Mixed, though, with the warmth that came from knowing he was the one reading me.
“Just learning how to be okay in a world without labels,” I told him.
Kai’s grin widened. “Eventually we may have to figure one out, if only for my parents to use. After they meet you, that is.”
I gave him a withering look. “I’ve met them, remember.”
He chuckled. “Meet them properly, I mean. Because right now they call you ‘the quiet gentleman who lives next door,’ and I’m pretty sure that if I held them at knifepoint they wouldn’t remember what your name is.”
I feigned wide-eyed surprise. “You’d threaten your own parents with a knife for me? Why, that really is true love.”
Kai closed his eyes, shaking his head ruefully. “You may have misunderstood just what I was saying,” he suggested, deadpan.
It felt good to laugh with him, even if there was still anxiety bubbling underneath. Fears I knew would need time to work through.
“Do you think they’ll have a problem? With the age difference, I mean.”
Kai made a face. “Maybe? Probably not? They know me well enough to understand there are parts of my life they can weigh in on, and other parts where they don’t get a say.
” He shrugged. “My mom’s seven years older than my dad is; I bet that was enough to cause some ripples, back when they got together. ”
“Seriously, though,” I said, “I really can live without a label for us. Y’know, as we figure it all out.”
He reached over to stroke his fingers down my shoulder. “Such growth,” he teased.
“I’ll just need extra reassurance and comfort in return,” I pointed out.
Kai nodded. “I shall hug you doubly-tight, and stroke your hair as you fall asleep each night.”
“No,” I corrected him, “I mean extra, extra reassurance.”
He smirked. “Then I shall fuck you on all-fours like a pile driver, until you can’t hardly walk, never mind get hung up on baseless doubts,” he added. “Reassuring enough?”
Giggling, I took his hand from my shoulder and pulled his fingers in close to my lips, kissing them.
“Much better,” I agreed. “And in return I’ll introduce you to my friends as the cocksucker who loves getting his throat reamed out.”
“Wait,” Kai said, sounding surprised. “You have friends?”
I shook my head. “Less talk, funny guy,” I told him, refusing to rise to the bait and instead pushing him down under the covers, “and more reassurance.”