Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Leo
NOW
Ifollowed Miranda into our room. It was dark outside, so I flipped on the floor lamp. We stared at the bed for a second before she crawled onto it, lying down on her stomach.
This is normal. We’ve always been physically affectionate. She doesn’t know what’s changed. Just be cool. Don’t make it weird.
Running through the mantras in my head, I reminded myself that this shouldn’t be a big deal. But despite my affirmations, it felt like dangerous territory.
Or maybe it was just me. Projecting.
I sat down next to her on the edge of the mattress. She turned to face me, and I realized how awkward our positions were. I could understand why massage therapists had tables for their clients. It would be difficult to get a good hold of Miranda’s shoulders from the side.
“Are you okay if I straddle you?” I asked. “I’ll keep my weight on my knees, but it’ll make it easier to do this.” In for a penny, in for a pound. If it had to be dangerous, at least the massage could be good too.
“Whatever works.” She seemed totally relaxed. Her eyes closed, and she melted into the bed.
I threw one of my legs over her thighs until my joggers-clad knees were on either side of hers. I rested back on my haunches, my thighs thick enough that I could still be comfortable without actually having to sit on her.
Leaning forward, I rubbed my thumbs across the juncture of her neck and shoulders. My fingers traced slow patterns down her spine and over the sinewy planes of her muscles, and I registered how enormous my hands were compared to the narrow expanse of her back.
Running my palms across her thin T-shirt, I rubbed circles along her sides as they tapered to her waist, working out any small knots I discovered along the way.
A groan escaped her. Guttural and deep. I squeezed my eyelids, drinking in the sound.
I’d done that. She'd made that noise because of me.
I reveled in the feel of her body beneath my hands.
Contemplated my deliberate motions. Miranda might be unaware, but this was the most sensual thing I’d ever experienced.
My cheeks heated as it hit me. We’d touched before.
Cuddled and hugged. But this was different.
This felt carnal, like I was servicing her.
I released a long breath, knowing I was on the edge of getting excited.
“Pressure okay?” I murmured, noticing how quiet the room was.
“It’s perfect. I feel very decadent right now.” She laughed lightly.
“Good. I never did get you a real birthday gift. We can consider this massage as me rectifying matters.”
She twisted her neck slightly to peek at me. “Leo, you have been the most amazing friend. And you have given me so much. Not just since Thanksgiving, but always. That’s the gift.”
I smiled, and some of my more tumultuous thoughts eased. “I know, Panda. But I’m glad to do this too.”
We stopped talking, and I moved my hands, kneading her lower back as she continued breathing deeply. My desire felt like a furnace inside me.
My fingers worked their way toward Miranda’s ass, stroking along its upper curve. I dug my thumbs into the area just above the waistband of her leggings, the twin dimples there beckoning me like sirens. I longed to press my mouth to them.
But I resisted.
I ran my palms from her shoulders down the length of her arms, gripping her triceps, her forearms, her wrists. As my fingers grazed the sensitive skin there, goose bumps popped up, and she hummed. “Tickles.”
“Sorry.” I dragged my hands back to her shoulders.
With Miranda so open and pliant beneath me, the desire to kiss her intensified. I imagined brushing my lips against the back of her neck. It would be in bounds. I’d given her pecks like that before.
Except I couldn’t do that now. Knowing how I felt. Knowing she belonged to someone else.
I arrived at the same impasse I’d been at for days. With the same lack of good options.
One path was to tell Miranda how I felt and leave the ball in her court. But it wasn’t fair to do that when she was dating Stone. Putting aside our long history, deep friendship, and my evolving asexuality, it was uncool to tell another person’s partner that you were into them.
Which left me with only one option—keeping my mouth shut.
I knew I needed to tell her about my new understanding of my sexuality, because holding back something that huge from her simply wasn’t who Miranda and I were as friends.
It could wait until after the New Year—based on the stiffness of her shoulders, she clearly had enough on her plate to worry about without me adding in any new wrinkles—but I couldn’t keep such a big revelation from my best friend indefinitely.
“Everything okay?” Miranda’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I realized I’d stopped moving my hands. I was basically just resting on my knees above her.
“Sorry, daydreaming.”
She rolled over underneath me and I ended up straddling her thighs.
I hadn’t anticipated the move. It had her grazing my dick, which thickened to half-mast.
She smiled, appearing oblivious to my distress, and I looked down at her. In all our times sharing a bed, we’d never been in this position. We’d lain next to each other, back-to-back, and spoon-style, but I’d never straddled her like this. Never felt so…dominant.
My instinct was to jump off, but I tamped it down. If she was going to act like this was perfectly above board and innocent, then it was.
“That was amazing,” she said, grinning up at me. “For someone who’s never given a massage before, you sure are good at it.” She placed her hands on my thighs. “Thank you.”
Her touch had my cock taking notice again, and I knew better than to keep playing with matches. I slid off her until I stood next to the bed. “Just wait until you taste my spaghetti.”
She chuckled. “Can’t wait… And Leo?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m sure you’re tense too, with everything, and doing all that work for the Hoopla. If you ever want a massage, I’m happy to return the favor.”
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Like that wouldn’t totally kill me.
“We’ll see.”
5 MONTHS AGO - JULY
Miranda knocked on my hotel room door at two in the morning. Luckily for her, I hadn’t been able to drift off since getting back from the reception a few hours ago.
“Everything okay?” I asked, blinking at the fluorescent lighting in the hallway.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I shivered as she dragged her fingertips casually across my bare stomach as she slipped inside the room. “Figured I’d see if you were in the same boat.”
I chuckled. “Sure am. When days are this nice, it’s hard to put a period on them.”
She sat down on my rumpled sheets. Turning on the table lamp next to the bed, I sank down into the chair across from her.
“It was a beautiful day,” she agreed. “Everything went so well.”
“You were a very capable maid of honor.”
James and Marley had opted for a low-key ceremony in a quaint nondenominational chapel downtown.
He’d worn a gray suit with no tie, and Marley’s white linen dress was equally unfussy.
They laughed when James landed a few jokes during his vows and again when their overexcited dogs couldn’t handle the twenty feet required for ring-bearing duties and detoured down the wrong aisle.
They’d held the reception at the high school, in the room next to the auditorium where James had sung to Marley eighteen months ago.
The space accommodated the sizable crowd who turned up to wish them well.
I met several of my brother’s students, current and former, and was happy for the reminder that he’d found his true calling as a teacher.
One young man, a recent graduate named Fel, approached my parents to tell them what an impact James had made on his life.
“Mr. Wymack has a way of talking to me that makes me realize when I’m being kind of a dick,” Fel explained with a smirk. “I think he’s trying to knock me down a peg or two before college, you know, for my own good.” He grinned wryly.
My dad raised an eyebrow. “Maybe for his next trick, my son can teach you not to say ‘dick’ in front of your elders.”
“Elders?” Fel looked from side to side. “I see no elders here.” He reached for my mom’s hand and dropped an air kiss over her knuckles. “I see only beautiful young ladies.”
“Cut the crap,” James said, approaching Fel. “I hope you got us a really good wedding present to make up for being a pain in the toosh the past two years.”
The young man shrugged. “Nah, we all chipped in and got you a new beanie. Because Ms. Davis deserves better than to be around that stanky one you always wear.” With that, he hurried away to his friends, calling back, “It’s been real, Mr. Wymack. Congrats on convincing Ms. Davis to marry you.”
Our mom and dad looked at James with pride.
And I knew it wasn’t only because of his impact on his students.
It was because of the wedding, Marley, setting up a life for himself in Coleman Creek, all of it.
They never made me feel less than for not being able to give them a day like this, but deep down, I wished I could.
For Marley and James’s official first dance, a senior student named Daniel played an acoustic rendition of “Across the Universe” on guitar while his friend Nan, a former student home from college for the summer, sang vocals.
Daniel looked at Nan with such naked longing in his eyes that even my ace heart—normally not attuned to those signals—could see it.
“You think he likes her?” Miranda asked, a lilt of laughter in her voice as she came up beside me.
“Maybe just a teeny bit.”
Daniel put down his guitar, and the DJ took over.
“May I have this dance?” Miranda asked prettily.
I wrapped my arm around her back, pulling her into my chest as we swayed to “At Last” and “Never My Love.” I admired that she was petite but also sturdy. Unbreakable in body and spirit. That’s what had drawn me to her in the first place, that toughness beneath the sweet exterior.
She leaned into me, exhaling a happy sigh. Closing my eyes, I felt the press of her cheek on my torso and the warmth of her skin beneath my hand. I breathed in the familiar scent of her shampoo and smiled at the gentle hum of her mumbling along to the music.
It wasn’t unusual for us to be close like this.
But the way I felt now was new. The way my body reacted was new. Noticing how she molded to me, registering her soft curves.
The soul-deep contentment of knowing the woman in my arms better than I knew myself was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
My pulse sped up.
I’d loved Miranda from the start. But I couldn't deny that something had shifted. All of the sudden, I was feeling things.
My heart thumped in my chest. Could it be…?
I darted my tongue out to lick my lips before nosing the top of Miranda's head.
Could it?
Yes.
Holy shit… Yes!
I wanted her.
I let the revelation sit in my mind until I knew, with zero doubt, that it was true.
For the rest of the reception, whether she was near or far, I felt her presence, the kernels of desire expanding and bursting in my stomach.
I wanted her. Now what?
The possibilities were thrilling, but by the time I arrived back at the hotel, the full reality of my attraction to Miranda had set in, tempering my initial elation. I was questioning everything I thought I knew about myself. Things I’d fought hard to come to terms with.
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew these things could evolve, that sexuality was fluid.
But part of me resented having such a straightforward explanation.
Almost like I’d betrayed myself. Although there weren’t many people in my life who knew about my asexuality, it was a label I’d worn proudly in my mind.
I’d used it to guide my life choices and interactions with others.
As much as having a romantic pull to Miranda ignited my senses, it also made me feel like a fraud.
Those were the thoughts going through my head as she sat across from me in my dim hotel room, appearing perfectly at ease in my disheveled sheets.
Was I really asexual if her hand brushing across my stomach made me tremble? Had I been holding people at a distance for no reason? Had I ever been true to myself? And how the fuck at age thirty-five did I not know the answers to these questions?
Perhaps more importantly, wanting her wasn’t the same as knowing I’d be able to love her the way she needed. The way she deserved.
Faced with those complicated anxieties, I could almost forget Stone's presence in her life.
But Miranda didn’t know what was happening with me.
And she hadn’t forgotten Stone. I suspected it was their situation that kept her awake tonight.
She’d looked upset during their video chat the day before.
I’d seen her slam her laptop closed from the backyard.
But after our argument about Stone and Naomi, we rarely discussed her boyfriend, so I hadn’t asked her about the call.
All the same, I sensed she needed me.
Her next words confirmed it.
“I don’t really know why I came to your room, Bear. I guess it just didn’t seem right to end this amazing day alone when I could end it with my favorite person in the world.”
“You know you can always come to me, Panda. Whatever you need.”
She yawned and scooted under the covers to the other side of the bed, patting the spot where she’d been sitting.
I smiled and crawled in next to her. It wasn’t the first time we’d shared a bed.
I’d woken up more than once in my apartment to find she’d snuck into my bedroom during the night, claiming my “creepy” painting was attempting to steal her soul.
I’d also graduated from the couch to one-half of the bed whenever I stayed with her in LA.
It would be different now, after what I'd discovered today, but I'd never deny her this comfort.
“Everything okay?” she asked, throwing an arm over my chest and snuggling into my side.
“Mm-hmm. Just tired.”
She’d had her nails done for the wedding, and she scratched them through my chest hair. I felt my dick perk up under the blanket and hoped she didn’t notice.
“You know,” her tone teased, “I’m pretty sure I see a few silver strands.”
I tilted my head and pretended to bite her jaw. “Are you saying I’m old?”
“No… Uh… Stone waxes his chest.” She rested her cheek on my sternum. “This is nice. I like the furry…and the silver.”
I harrumphed. She’d barely mentioned Stone’s name to me in months. I tightened my arm around her.
“Can I sleep here?” she asked.
“Course.”
A few minutes later, I heard her soft snores.
Unsurprisingly, I found sleep elusive and eventually gave up trying. My brain continued to churn with all its earlier worries, even as I enjoyed holding the first woman I’d been attracted to in over a decade. After so many years of nursing the same patterns, my life had turned a corner.
I’d entered a new era where I no longer fully knew myself.
I was officially having an identity crisis.