Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
I’m gone for hours, and I’m more relieved than I care to admit when I come home and see Mackenzie’s car in the driveway. I’m glad she was here to keep Starlight company.
While I was at work, he was all I could think about. I sent out a text blast to some of the paranormal folks in town with a cryptic request to see if anyone was open to talking. I don’t know who I can trust with information on Starlight, but I know I need some help.
When I open the door, I half expect to find Starlight and Mackenzie having a dance party in the living room or Mackenzie telling Starlight ghost stories or something. But instead, there’s an old rom com playing on the TV and Mackenzie and Starlight are asleep on the couch.
Mackenzie has her head on Starlight’s chest, and he has his arm around her shoulders. At least he’s wearing a shirt—one of my old Denver Broncos shirts—but I still feel a tug of jealousy I wish I didn’t.
I want to know what it would be like to snuggle in next to him like that.
Like I’m thinking a little too loudly, Starlight jerks awake, his eyes finding me. His mouth pulls into a smile. “Mason,” he breathes, and my stomach twists into a knot. Fuck, he’s so beautiful. And when he says my name like that…
Mackenzie sucks in a breath and sits up quickly. “Shit. How long were we out?” She looks over at the TV, where Crazy, Stupid, Love is still playing. “Oh,” she says, her voice a bit more cheerful. “Not that long.” She stands and fixes her rumpled clothes. “Good day at work?”
I shrug. “It was a day. I asked for a couple of days off to deal with, uh…” My eyes flit over to Starlight. He’s watching me closely, only looking away long enough to watch Mackenzie pull her hair up into a messy bun. “Plans probably need to be made tomorrow.”
I’m not sure anymore if I’m speaking to her or to him. I guess it doesn’t matter.
Mackenzie crosses her arms. “Right. Well, let me know if you need help or anything. I should probably—”
“Should you not stay?”
We both turn to look at Starlight. He hasn’t gotten up from the couch, just regards us carefully from amidst the cushions.
“There isn’t really—” Mackenzie begins.
Starlight turns to me. “Did you not say that the other bedroom is hers?”
I snort. “The room is mine. She just sleeps there when she comes over.”
He gestures toward her. “She is here now. And it is late. She can sleep in the bedroom.”
Possibilities start to rush through my mind. Is he saying he wants to stay in there with her? Did something happen between them while I was gone? Or is he implying…?
“I will sleep here,” he says, cutting my thoughts short. He pats the couch.
“It’s not long enough for you.”
He smiles. “I don’t mind.”
I send Mackenzie a questioning glance, and she shrugs. “It would be nice not to have to drive across town. I’m pretty woozy.”
“Yeah, okay.”
She pats me once on the shoulder and heads down the hallway without another word. When the bedroom door shuts behind her, I rub my hands together. “I’ll get you some blankets.”
Starlight smiles up at me. “I do not need coverings, remember? I will not get cold.”
“Right.” I shrug. “For comfort then? I always feel weird sleeping without a blanket, even if I’m not cold.”
His brown eyes seem to shine at me. “If it would make you happy.”
I’m digging through the hall closet when his voice carries over to me. “Mackenzie tells me you fix machines.”
I pull out two thick blankets and walk back to the couch. “That's a bit of a simplified explanation, but yes. I'm a mechanical engineer. What did the two of you do today?”
“Mackenzie took me to meet a dog.”
I drop the blankets on the couch and sit next to him, pausing the TV. “A dog?”
Starlight sits up straight, his hands on his knees, like he’s preparing for something. “She says she looks after the dog while its owners are away.”
“Oh. The Mulligans’ dog.” That means she drove Starlight clear across town. Maybe she shouldn’t have stayed after all if she’s supposed to be dog-sitting.
“We were very careful. And then Mackenzie took me to a place called Pizza Hut. I waited in the car behind the building.”
I scowl. “She ate in front of you?” I’m not sure why the thought of it frustrates me so much. I feel like Mackenzie is being too careless with him.
“I do not mind. I think it is fascinating. After that, we watched a movie. I believe it was called Moulin Rouge.” He pronounces it clunkily, having a hard time getting his mouth to make the shapes of the words.
“Yeah, that's her favorite.”
“It was very colorful and there was music.” He pauses, and a silence stretches between us. I don’t break it because I can tell by the look on his face that he isn’t finished speaking. “But there is one thing I am confused about.” He’s not looking directly at me, which is strange. Is he…nervous?
“Yeah?”
“Kissing.”
It’s like my brain screeches to a halt. Of all the things I thought he might have said, this is not one of them. “Kissing?”
“That’s what Mackenzie called it. The characters in the movie kiss a lot. And I thought... I thought I would very much like to know what it feels like.”
My throat stretches tight, until all I can do is choke out, “You want to try kissing?”
I expect him to grin at me, to show me all that unbridled joy he’s usually wearing. But instead, he looks down at his hands. “Mackenzie says it is a sign of affection.”
“Did you ask Mackenzie to kiss you?” Fuck. I wish I hadn’t asked. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to think of my sister kissing Starlight. The thought makes my stomach burn.
Starlight’s eyes meet mine. “No.” The word is almost sharp. “I do not want to kiss Mackenzie. I want to kiss you.”
My lips part, my mouth dropping open. “You want to kiss me?”
He scoots a little closer to me on the couch, until I can feel the heat of him across the small space between us. It makes me want to crawl into his lap.
“I feel a lot of affection for you, Mason.” His words come out as nearly a whisper, and I don’t realize he’s already bending toward me until he’s speaking against my lips. “You are beautiful and kind and funny.”
I can’t help the way I suck in a breath or the way I let it out in a sigh against his mouth just before his lips press to mine. I hold still, let him experiment all he wants. But when he doesn’t move, his mouth static against mine, a still pressure, I realize he doesn’t know what to do.
I smile against his lips and put some space between us before kissing him again, gently, but hard enough that he’ll learn that it can be more than a brush of lips.
He makes a little sound that sends heat down into my skin, and I press harder, sucking at his bottom lip until he opens his mouth and I can slip my tongue in.
He gives a soft moan and takes my face in his hands, kissing me back sweet and a little sloppy. I’m halfway in his lap, the two of us devouring each other, when I taste salt on his lips.
I pull back, panic lancing through me when I realize he’s crying. “What’s wrong?”
He sniffles, laughs a little. “Nothing is wrong. This is good. Humanity is so beautiful,” he says.
Maybe if our current circumstances were a little different, it would be funny that he's crying over this, but right now, it's not.
I sit back on the couch, putting distance between us. “I’ve lived with humans long enough to know it's not always beautiful.”
“No,” he says, his voice solid, clear. “But I have also watched humans enough to know that there are so many that are beautiful. Like you.”
I huff a laugh. “Maybe we should get some sleep.” I stand, and his eyes follow me, full of something a little desperate, tear tracks still drying on his cheeks.
“May I sleep in your bed with you?”
He might as well have asked me if he could punch me in the stomach. The effect would have been the same.
“Um. Yeah. I mean, if it would make you feel better.” I haven’t shared a bed with a guy in…
I don’t even know how long. My last long-term relationship was in college, before I moved out here to Black Forest. Since then, I’ve been so focused on work and the ley line research that I don’t mingle much, just the occasional hookup in town when I have the social battery to head out there.
I’ve always been more content to be on my own.
At least, I thought so. But the thought of having Starlight in bed with me, sleeping beside me, sounds quite nice.
He nods and stands. “I would very much like to.” He starts to smile, but then his face takes on a sharp expression, and he presses a hand to his chest.
I step forward. “What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “I am not sure. It was…” His eyes meet mine, and he drops his hand. “It is nothing. Just an odd pain. It is gone now.”
A pain. I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t like the idea of Star being in pain at all, but I suppose it’s part of being human.
In my room, I slip into my closet and change into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, staring at myself in the floor-length mirror. I would normally sleep in my underwear, and looking at myself now, I feel like a little kid getting ready to go to school on PJ Day.
Star is already in bed when I step out of the closet, laying on top of the blanket. He’s taken the shirt off that he was wearing, and I’m suddenly second-guessing my own shirt. I want to know what it would feel like to press my bare skin against his.
I get in the queen-sized bed beside him, and for a long time, we just look at each other.
And then, when I’m struggling to keep my eyes open, he says, “Mackenzie told me about your parents.”
I guess I can’t be upset with her about that. I left them alone together for hours. What else were they supposed to do but talk?
“And she told me about how you took care of her when they died.”
I shrug. “Anyone would have done the same. She was already fifteen and I was nineteen. I couldn’t let her go to a foster home or whatever.”
I hold my breath when he reaches out and runs the backs of his fingers down my cheek. “You have a good heart.”
His hand falls between us, and even though I want to, I resist the urge to lace our fingers together on the mattress.