Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Holy fuck. Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck. A constant phrase in my mind that had played again and again. Elio was snoring on my chest, his entire body damn near wrapped around me.
Elio.
Elio fucking Hampton. The same man I’d kissed a hundred times by now and come in my pants with. My best friend, now something so much more in a way I’d never imagined.
Did he know I’d never touched anyone before? That our first kiss was my first kiss? When he got on top of me and made me come, that’d been the first time I’d ever done anything with anyone. Could he tell?
Holy fuck.
Sometimes, when we were apart or he was sleeping like this, I thought about it. Hard. I thought about it so hard that I started to freak out, like I was doing right this second. I should take him on a date, right? Would he like that? Or would it be too much, too soon? Where would we even go?
My brain was going a thousand miles a minute.
There was so much going on that it’d clouded the deep, indescribable sadness weighing just below the surface.
I knew it wouldn’t last too long, but I’d take it where I could get it.
My ears were hurting because of the earbuds I kept stuffed in them, but nothing was playing for the moment.
There weren’t any disembodied voices whispering to me, either.
I reached up, slowly pulling one of them out. My Sunshine’s snores were even louder without them, and that much more endearing. Special. I felt honored to be so safe for him that he was able to sleep so soundly on top of me. He hadn’t stirred at all since I’d woken up.
I listened to the sound of him breathing for a little bit, simply looking down at his face in awe. He looked so peaceful like this. There were no worries to deepen his frown, no tears shining in his eyes, no quiver of his lips when he thought I couldn’t tell he was having a hard time.
Elio was content and relaxed. I loved seeing him like this. I loved being the one to hold him like this.
I think I loved him.
Which was an honestly terrifying thought. I’d loved him as his best friend almost our entire lives, but this was different. This was too soon, right? Far too soon. Definitely too soon for me to say anything.
My alarm started to blare, startling me, which in turn startled Elio. I reached beside me, grabbing my phone from the nightstand to make it shut up.
Elio’s eyes opened one at a time. They took a moment to focus as he inhaled through his nose, which turned into a yawn.
His hair was everywhere, all disheveled despite having slept on my chest for most of the night.
When he finally looked at me and seemed to realize it was me, he smiled. A big, bright, sleepy smile. “Morning.”
His smile was infectious. Hearing his voice without my earbuds was heartbreaking.
Realizing just how much I’ve missed because of a stupid fucking condition that’d ruined my life was agonizing.
But his smile, so sweet, so warm, so Elio, was infectious.
So I smiled in return, trying to whisper the same words back to him.
My mind was full of far too much, with barely any time to say the words plaguing it. “Wanna go on a date?”
His confusion was obvious. I didn’t even have to look at the way his nose had scrunched to tell. “What?”
“Well, I had meant to say good morning back, but I’d been thinking about it all morning. I guess it decided to come out.”
For a second, he didn’t say anything. I’d started to think he might be weirded out. Until he started to laugh. “Yeah, Cres. I’ll go on a date with you.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded against me, his ear rubbing along my chest. “Of course. Where at?”
Wonderful question. “I’ll tell you later, I promise. I need to go ahead and get ready for work. Sarah should be here in a little bit.”
“Ugh. I don’t want you to go to work. It’s too early.” His frown was, quite honestly, one of the cutest things I’d ever seen.
“I don’t want to either, baby. But I have to. Sarah will take you to therapy at ten, and then I’ll be home sometime after two.”
He wrapped his arms around me, pressing his face deeper into my chest. I could feel him hum, his voice vibrating into my skin. “Mmm, baby. I like that.”
I needed to get up. Fuck, I needed to get up, get ready, and go to work. But how could I do that when I had my Sunshine on me, being all cute and sleepy? “I’ll be back before you know it, Sunshine.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll let you go. But I want a kiss first.”
That I could push back time for. He leaned down, letting me press my lips to his.
It was only supposed to be a quick peck, if anything, but it seemed neither of us wanted to stick to that unspoken rule.
I took him gently, but with greed. There was never enough when it came to Elio.
I could get lost in the small lines in his lips, dropping into the cavern of them, content to never make it out.
We pulled away, each of us with a smile on our faces. “Go get ready, honey. I’ll probably sleep a little bit longer.”
Honey.
Ah, fuck. My heart. How could I tell if I still had one? I was sure it’d have exploded by now. By the way it was pounding from his words alone, I guessed it was still there, but I couldn’t be sure anymore.
Reluctantly, I let him peel himself away from the safety of my body, throwing my legs over to get out of the bed myself. I truly didn’t want to leave him.
Getting ready was easier today than it had been.
My earbuds were charging on my nightstand while I put on my work clothes, and it seemed the voices were staying tame and respectful for the moment.
By the time I got to the front door, Sarah was already there, a grin on her face despite it being so early.
She pushed past the door, dropping her purse from her shoulder. “Hey, Cres. Elio still in bed?”
“Yeah, he said he might sleep a little longer. Help yourself to some breakfast for now if you’d like, though. You guys shouldn’t have to leave until around nine-thirty, so just make yourself at home until he wakes up.”
“Sounds good! I’ll make sure he gets there on time. Are his sessions weekly?”
I grabbed my keys and lunchbox, trying to get myself ready to be without Elio for nine hours of my day. “They’re twice a week for now while he adjusts.”
She plopped into the chair, sighing as she sank down. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Have a good day at work!”
Leaving the apartment felt like a crime. It felt wrong to put Elio in Sarah’s hands instead of my own. Once I got into the car, my heart felt like it was being pulled so far toward his direction that I almost let my feet carry me back.
I thought about it the entire day. The way my heart pulled and tugged, yearning for his company.
Every task I completed, I completed with Elio on my mind, getting lost imagining what we could do for our date.
There were so many options, yet none at the same time.
Our town didn’t have much to do outside of the few and far between restaurants we could go to, but I wasn’t sure if that was too boring.
My usual bench at the park was empty, waiting for me. As of five minutes ago, Elio had given me the green light that would help me do what I’ve needed to do for a while now.
I waited, paralyzed with anticipation as the phone rang in my earbuds. After an entire five seconds, Moon finally picked up.
“Well, look who decided to call his big brother.”
Rolling my eyes, I scoffed loud enough he could definitely hear it. “Yeah, I know. I wanted to talk to you about that, actually.”
The telltale rustle of the blankets came through my earbuds. “About why you’ve ignored us for so long?”
“I wasn’t ignoring you intentionally, Moon. My entire world has basically, like, shifted, and I need you to be serious with me for a second. And I need you to not freak out or anything about what I’m going to tell you.”
He was silent for a moment, which almost scared me, honestly. “Okay. Hit me with it.”
“Elio is back.”
This time, he was silent for even longer. I’d been chewing a bite of my sandwich, slowing almost to a complete stop as Moon contemplated what I’d said.
He cleared his throat. “Like Elio Elio? Elio, who lived with us and was your best friend forever, Elio? Elio, like Mom and Dad’s long-lost son Elio?”
The piece of bread was far more difficult to swallow than it should’ve been. It was drier than it had been before, getting stuck to the walls of my throat. “Yeah. Long story short, we’re living together. Remember his boyfriend back from high school?”
“Uh, Jude, right?”
“Yeah. He was an abusive motherfucking asshole. Almost a fucking decade, Moon. Almost an entire decade of absolute fucking hell. I helped him escape, and we’ve been living together ever since.”
“Holy fuck, Cres.”
“Yeah. I can’t really say what I want to do to that man over the phone, but just know it isn’t pretty.”
Moon blew out a breath, loud and obnoxious, in my ear. “I can imagine. I wish I could say I knew something was off about the guy, but honestly, I had no idea. I can’t believe he’s just been dealing with that this whole time.”
I looked over to the patch of daisies. They reminded me of Elio, each petal I could spot bringing memories of our time here before he moved in with me. “I have one more thing to tell you, too. You can’t freak out, okay?”
“More shocking than this? I can’t promise anything.”
“I’m taking him on a date.”
It sounded like the phone got thrown or dropped, or maybe he just sat up in bed really fast. I wasn’t sure. “Excuse me?”
I shoved the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth to try to buy myself time. Unfortunately, I’d underestimated just how nosy Moon was. He kept repeating those two words until I finally forced a swallow. “We’ve been… you know. Getting closer. I mean, are you really surprised?”
“My baby brother. The baby brother who has sworn off dating for most of his life. Have you been pining for Elio this whole time?”
“I think so.”
“You think so? Cres. Bro.”