Thirty-One
A fter loaning me an old T-shirt and pajama bottoms to sleep in, we fight over who gets the couch. Krystal, apparently, is too polite to let me take it, even for a night, but the last thing I want to do is put her out. “We’re both adults,” I finally say, too tired to continue arguing but not enough to give in. “Your bed is big enough for two people.”
Which is how I end up here, lying next to her, our shoulders brushing on her full-size mattress. But the extra Malibu had one hell of an effect on me because without even meaning to, I’m asleep before I know it.
Sunlight pours in through the gauzy curtains covering her window, waking me long before I’m ready. I’m warm and comfortable, tangled in Krystals arms.
Wait a minute.
I blink against a bare shoulder, barely registering my arm slung around her back.
“Krystal,” I whisper her name, gently shaking her arm.
“Mm-hmm.” Her eyes are still closed, but a hand at my waist tightens slightly. My heart races so hard, I can hear the sound of rushing blood in my eardrums. How in the world am I waking up in her arms when we weren’t so much as touching last night?
Stop complaining and enjoy it while it lasts.
“We’re cuddling,” I tell her, in case she’s half asleep and somehow unaware. If she was thinking clearly, maybe she’d want to extricate herself from my body. “Should we—” When I try to roll away from her, she pulls me back into the curve of her body.
“What time is it?” she mumbles, her hand moving up to stroke my arm. Blearily, her eyes blink open.
The clock on her nightstand reads 7:35 a.m. When I tell her as much, she grumbles and sinks back into me. Distantly, I can recognize the trouble I’m in. Cuddling isn’t nearly as innocent as it sounds, not when her arms feel like the safest place I’ve ever been. Not when I’m counting her breaths to fall back asleep like I’m counting sheep. Not when I’m lulled into the best sleep I’ve ever had by the warmth of her embrace.
The second time I wake up, I’m alone. I smell freshly brewed coffee wafting from the kitchen, telling me Krystal didn’t go very far. My head pounds in protest when I try to sit up, and last night’s drinking comes screaming back to me. Something catches my attention at the corner of my vision, and I turn my head to the glass of water and bottle of Advil sitting on the nightstand. I pick up the bottle with a ridiculous grin on my face. Why does she have to be so thoughtful? I can’t afford to like her any more than I already do. I won’t survive it. I palm two pills and wash them down with the glass of water before getting out of bed.
“Oh good, you’re up,” Krystal says, turning to me with two mugs of coffee in hand as I make my way into the kitchen. She hands me one when I reach her. Her hair is down, falling past her shoulders in gorgeous brown waves. There’s a softness to early-morning Krystal, her face clear of makeup, sleepy eyes half closed until her third sip of coffee.
I try and fail not to stare at her thin pajama set. She doesn’t notice the strap of her see-through tank top fall off one shoulder, but her breath catches when I tug it back in place. For two blissful seconds, my fingers brush her soft, smooth skin. Goose bumps erupt at my touch, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s my effect on her. If that’s the case, I like it way too much.
“How’d you sleep?” she asks, looking away from me.
“Better than I have in weeks,” I say honestly. “Sorry we ended up… you know.”
“Don’t apologize.” She smirks. “I wouldn’t doubt I’m the reason we woke up like that. Sometimes I wake up strangling my body pillow. Living alone has made me touch-starved.”
“I didn’t know you made a habit of cuddling in your sleep.” I delight in the way her cheeks turn pink. “It’s cute.”
“Shut up,” she grumbles into her mug. “If I ever become manager, I’m firing Luis.”
“Who’s Luis?” She gives me a look that says, You can’t be serious . Then it comes back to me. The flirty bartender plying me with drinks while Krystal’s back was turned. “Oh. Right.”
“It’d be more money. And more benefits, not to mention more experience if I want to open my own bar one day. Like firing handsy bartenders who don’t have a clue.”
“But he never touched me.”
“I can’t fire him for being flirty. That’s half the job description.”
“So you’d make up a fireable offense because you’re jealous?”
Her mouth pops open as if to deny it, but not a word comes out.
“I’m flattered.”
“I was jealous,” she admits in a low growl that makes my toes curl. “Twice in one night. Even though I know you don’t like men. How pathetic is that?”
“It’s not pathetic.” I bump her shoulder with mine. “Ego boosting for sure, but not pathetic.”
“You don’t need any help in that department.” I let out a guffaw, but she just laughs in my face. “Am I wrong?”
“Only a little.” Her brows furrow in question. “It’s a facade. Back when I thought I had something to prove, I flirted with lots of guys. Maybe it’s comphet, or maybe my cousins fucked me up more than I even knew. I thought my world would fall apart if people found out I’d never been kissed. I did anything to counteract the damage Briana and Esme caused. Anything but actually kiss someone.”
“You weren’t ready,” Krystal says. “I hate that they pressured you like that, and then made you feel like you weren’t enough as you were. You shouldn’t have had to become someone you’re not just to appease them.”
“I think I would’ve been ready a lot sooner if it wasn’t for them,” I confess. “Ever since I figured out my identity, I keep thinking about all the time I lost trying to prove to everyone how straight I was. I like who I am now, but my family doesn’t get it. I stopped wearing makeup and feminine clothes, and my parents thought I was depressed. I can just imagine how they’d look at me if I did what I really want to do.”
“What do you really want to do?”
I burst off the couch before the question is out of her mouth.
“How good are you at cutting hair?”
“Decent, but there’s a reason I’m a bartender and not a hairdresser,” she says. “Why?”
“Want to give me a haircut?”
Her stare lingers on me for a moment before I realize what she’s doing. Her hand reaches out to push my hair back from my shoulders as her head tilts, assessing.
“Let’s do it.” Her smile spreads. “Scissors are in my bathroom drawer.”
I barrel past her to the bathroom, barely registering as she calls out, “Wait!” when I reach out to pull open the first drawer I see below her sink.
“That’s a lot of vibrators.” I feel Krystal standing over me, waves of mortification coming off both of us. She kneels beside me, moving my hand from the drawer and shutting it with a loud thump .
“Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen, all right?” Krystal clears her throat and finally looks at me. “Let me grab the scissors.”
She seats me on top of the toilet seat and wraps a bath towel around my shoulders, tying it at the back of my neck. Her fingers sink into my hair, massaging my scalp. Her touch is exquisite and does nothing to clear my mind from what I spotted in the bottom drawer.
“The bathroom is sort of a weird place to store… those .”
“I thought we agreed to pretend you didn’t see anything,” she says, and for a moment I think that’s the last of it. She fills a spray bottle with water, wets my curls, and brushes through them with a comb. “Those are my waterproof ones. I… take a lot of baths in here.”
“Oh… oh .”
Before I can ask any of the myriad questions that come to mind with that little tidbit, she asks, “How short were you thinking?”
“The shorter the better,” I reply quickly. “I didn’t know they made waterproof vibrators. Are they designed for… bath play?”
I hear her suck in a breath behind me. “They’re not technically vibrators. And they’re made to use in or out of the bath.”
“What do you mean they’re not vibrators?”
“I guess the more appropriate term would be… suction toys.”
Holy shit.
I don’t have much time to react to this knowledge before she asks me a few more questions about the length. I give her a quick rundown of the style I have in mind, wondering at her many talents when she doesn’t so much as bat an eye at my request. Even though I’ve always been tempted to chop off my hair, I never have. I’ve gotten lots of compliments for my long hair over the years. I always thought my hair is what made me pretty. But if I’m being honest, I think I’m done with pretty.
“What does it feel like?” I stare down at the floor, watching more and more of my hair fall to the tile. “Using one of those things.”
She stops cutting for a moment. “A vibrator or suction toy?”
“I don’t know.” I bite down on my thumbnail. “Either?”
“Have you never used one before?” She doesn’t sound surprised, merely curious.
“I live with my parents.” I roll my eyes. “The walls are paper thin. Believe me, I’ve been tempted to buy one, but I’ve never wanted to chance it.”
“They do have silent ones. I can give you some recommendations for those.” I nod, and she resumes cutting. “As for how it feels…” My blood heats in anticipation. “Well, I’ve always had a preference for suction. It doesn’t feel the same as oral with a partner, obviously. There’s a circular tip that pulls air to create a suction feeling.”
“That’s the one you use in the bath?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Unbidden, the thought of her using one of those suction toys on herself pops into my head. I only caught a glimpse of the silicone device before she snapped the drawer shut, so I hardly remember what it looked like. Not that that’s any deterrent to the dangerous thoughts churning inside my brain. Not when I’ve already seen what Krystal’s body looks like mid-orgasm. The way her mouth drops open in an O, the flush of her skin. Replace the bedsheets with a clawfoot tub and bubbles covering most of her body, and the image shouldn’t be nearly as arousing but somehow it’s more.
And then my thoughts veer into even more treacherous territory. How good would it feel to use one of those devices on myself? How would the soft silicone feel on my skin, where I’m most sensitive? I cross my legs just thinking about it, squeezing my thighs together to quell the growing ache.
“What are you thinking about?” Her voice is innocent enough, but her timing is uncanny. She’s in front of me now, snipping some framing pieces. She has to know what kind of thoughts are circling my brain after this conversation.
“I’m thinking that’s a lot of sex toys for one person.” It just comes bursting out of me, no tact. “There were at least five in the bottom drawer alone.” I clamp my mouth shut when I realize I sound judgy without meaning to, guilt niggling in my chest when Krystal’s face turns a shade redder. “How many more do you have?”
“There’s maybe one or two in my nightstand. There was a sale last time I was online, and I kinda went a little wild.”
“Isn’t there a law against owning this many sex toys in Texas?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s dildos. Either way, I doubt they really care that much about a bogus law. Besides, what the government doesn’t know won’t hurt them.”
“It shouldn’t matter to them, period. We’re allowed to own more guns than sex toys. What kind of a sick joke is that?”
“Let’s pretend that’s why I own an obscene amount of sex toys at the moment.” Krystal smirks. “This little collection is my small protest. I’m sticking it to the man by… sticking it to myself.”
The room is quiet for a long beat. Then we both look at each other and burst into laughter.
“Do you want to see what your hair looks like so far?” She shakes out the remaining length of my hair, which now barely grazes my shoulders. I stand from the toilet seat and glance in the mirror. The difference is stark, and when I try to remember the last time I cut my hair this short, I come up blank. In college, guys would always comment how much they liked my long hair. Though I was never attracted to them physically or romantically, I always swelled at their praise. Sucked it up like a sponge. Wore my hair down every time I went out and reveled at the result of turning heads.
“I want to go shorter. Do you have hair clippers?”
She shakes her head, brows creasing. “Should I be worried about you, Angel?”
“No.” I shake my head in the mirror and watch the short curls fly. They’re tighter now that all the extra length isn’t weighing them down. My head feels light. “You know in the movies when women cut their hair after a breakup to signal a breakdown or radical transformation?”
“Sure.” Her brows crease, wondering where I’m going with this.
“I think I’m in my radical transformation era.” The truth is, I’ve come a long way since discovering my identity. Hell, I’ve come a long way since coming out to three people and then feeling frozen in my life, so afraid of what people I know will think when they find out. I don’t care about any of that anymore.
“Radical, huh?” Her fingers skate the ends of my freshly cut hair. “I think you’d look pretty hot with short hair, or even a ’90s boyfriend look.” My eyes shut and for this short moment, I sink into her touch. At least I’m prepared for it to be short, but when I open my eyes, our faces are an inch apart. I suck in a breath, stunned. Something like anxiety or excitement shoots through my veins until I remember what she told me last weekend.
She’s not going to kiss me. She’s going to wait for me to make a move first—something I’m not even sure I know how to do. My eyes flick down to her lips, pink and plush and parted on a breath, and then I move my head down to meet her. Our foreheads touch, noses grazing. My heart is jumping in my chest like it’s searching for an exit route, stilling my progress. Are we really about to do this? In her bathroom with my hair scraps at our feet?
We’re breathing the same air, staring at each other for surely what’s longer than necessary as I get my thoughts in order. Just as our lips graze—the most incremental of touches as my bottom lip rubs against hers—I divert course completely and rest my forehead on her shoulder.
Kissing her now would feel wrong with the scavenger hunt hanging over my head. Even though kissing her is the only thing I want to do. But nothing’s changed. As long as she believes she isn’t capable of love, we can’t go anywhere. But none of it is strong enough to stop me from wanting to kiss her anyway.
“I can’t kiss you yet,” I mumble into her skin. Her nails graze my scalp in the most delicious way, and it’s almost tempting enough to change my mind. “I just can’t. Not until I cancel the scavenger hunt.”
She freezes for a moment beneath me. “Is that what you want?”
“I want to kiss you,” I tell her instead, because it’s the truth. “I want you to be my first. But I can’t in good conscience do that, not right now.”
“I understand,” she says, freezing again when I plant a kiss on her bare shoulder. I don’t even mean to; it’s just that when she’s this close, she’s even harder for me to resist.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she sighs. “I’m the one who’ll take any first you have to offer like the greedy bitch I am.”
As if I’ve been possessed—or maybe it’s her confession spurring me on—I kiss her in the same spot again. Longer this time, letting my teeth drag against her sensitive skin. She sucks in a ragged breath, the sound overloud in my ears. I move my way up the slope of her shoulder to her neck, leaving open-mouthed kisses with just the barest of suction across her skin along the way. Her head arches back, giving me ample access to her. I revel in this first, in the taste of her, all the while taking stock of her every reaction.
When my arm wraps around her waist to pull her body closer to mine, her hand tightens on my head, keeping me pinned to her. Her other hand tugs at my shirt as I kiss and suck her neck, finding a rhythm that drives her up the wall the fastest. The first involuntary moan comes the second time I use my teeth, and again when I kiss away the sting.
“Is this okay?” I ask between kisses. When she gives a wordless nod, I’m pushing her against the wall and grabbing her wrists. “What about this?”
She heaves a breath as we’re chest to chest, her arms in the air as I pin her wrists above her head. Those gorgeous brown eyes glitter up at me. “What are you— Oh .” Her breath hitches as a knee makes its way between her thighs, pushing up until the warmth of her core seeps into my pajama pants.
“I may not be able to kiss you,” I tell her, “but I have a few ideas for what we can do instead.”