Chapter 30
Emmett
The shuffle of feet down the hallway has me curling up into a tighter ball beneath the blankets.
I recognize the steps. The sound of Tristen’s socked feet on the worn carpet.
It’s not the first time I’ve laid in Hatley’s bed and listened to him walk the path to this room, his gait tired, his breathing caged.
I know it’s because he’s worn out, but that doesn’t stop my body from processing it as a danger.
Doesn’t stop me from flinching when he pushes the door open softly, steps inside and whispers my name.
There’s something about it tonight though that sounds … desperate.
Just like it did the second night of Hatley’s detox.
“Bub, please tell me you’re still with me.”
My stomach twists up.
I want to pretend I’m asleep. Ignore him. He’ll find me in his own time and ease whatever’s inside his mind without my involvement.
But I … can’t.
“I’m dead and you’re in hell,” I whisper from behind my blanket barrier and the breath of relief that flies out of him is so loud, it sounds like a groan.
“Fuck, bub.” He collapses beside me in the bed, curling up around me. He’s close. So close that he’s almost touching me, but not. “Hell’s colder than I thought.”
My stomach flitters.
“How was it?” I ask for no reason at all.
He lets loose another sigh and shoves an arm beneath his head, finding my gaze amongst the fabric and holds it.
“I thought about you all fucking night.”
“Why?” I blurt to his forehead. His temple is damp with sweat, his hair stringing into his eyes.
“I …” He licks his lips, and I wait. “I just couldn’t wait to see you.”
That’s a lie.
I can see it in the way his brow twitches and his lips flatten.
Was he worried he’d find me dead?
Because I wanted to be.
Most of the night, I stared at the wall right behind his head, facing the doorway, waiting.
It was quiet here without them.
Somehow too quiet even with the ceiling fan that Tristen never turns off and the hum of the bulb over the stove in the kitchen. The chirp of bugs braving the elements in the night just outside the window.
My house never had open windows.
“Emmett.”
It’s thick the way he says my name, and it sends a shiver down my spine.
“Yeah?” I whisper back so quietly, it’s almost like I didn’t say anything at all.
“I’m really glad to see you.”
My breathing hitches and my stomach clenches.
“Me?”
His smile cracks open the tiniest bit, flashing the bottom part of his crooked tooth.
“Yeah, you.” He nuzzles his head against his arm. I swallow hard. “Can I …” He trails off and I find myself listening harder, leaning closer, letting the blanket fall back from my head. Like maybe I’ll miss whatever he’s about to say if I don’t.
“Can you?”
His smile cracks further open and my stomach twists. It’s dim in here, but I swear I see his cheeks darken when he turns into his arm, then back to me with eyes similar to the way they looked last night.
Tired. Worn down.
But hungry.
“Fuck, bub, I really wanna kiss you.”
Every organ inside me flips over themselves.
I’ve never been asked before.
“U-um…” I swallow hard.
“If you like it … you can do it whenever you want to,” he whispers, his words close enough that I feel them tickle over my face.
My gaze flicks to the sincerity shining in his.
Whenever?
Does that mean …
“Just one. If you want to, bubbles.”
Theres a long moment where his eyes flick between mine, and mine between his. It’s heavy, the thing stretching in the shortening gap, but not uncomfortable. Like a question you’d wait all night to be answered.
I should answer, right?
“Why?” I breathe out, my arms tucked into my chest, the backs of my covered knuckles brushing his shirt.
The corner of his lips tip and he tilts closer.
“Why not?”
I open my mouth to answer but stop short of speaking when Tristen’s lips meet mine.
They’re warm. Spit-slicked and soft except for the spot where the bottom is split.
It’s just two mouths pressed together, two people touching.
And yet it feels like everything all at once.
I’m floating, the featherlight feeling settling into my stomach that I curl around and hold. It doesn’t matter that it draws my knees up into his stomach, my toes touch his thighs.
I lean into it.
It tingles.
“Emmett,” he rasps against me, and my eyes fly open.
I don’t know when I closed them.
The sound that every kiss on the TV makes pops off our lips when I jerk back.
“I’m s-sorry.”
My face feels like I palmed it with lava, my pulse hammering in my ears.
I go to roll away, to escape, when I bump into his hovering hand.
“Can I touch you?”
He sounds as breathless as I feel, and when I turn to him, he’s right there. Sharing the pillow. The puffs of his exhale flittering over my cheek.
“I-I …” I swallow hard and meet his watchful brown gaze.
I can’t explain why now, why he is so much different than before. I can’t understand why the desire swirling around inside me feels foreign, yet welcome as I stare into that gaze of his. How I … want whatever it is that he’s offering.
I shouldn’t want that.
It feels like I’m stepping into a trap that I can see.
Willingly.
“Okay.”
His eyes darken and his hand finds my hip.
I jolt even though I know it’s coming, but that doesn’t seem to deter him from slipping his warm grip just beneath the hem of my hoodie—his hoodie—to my lower back.
I break out in goosebumps when it flattens against me, and he pulls me close. So close that I feel the heat of his chest on mine. The pressure of his thighs against mine. The bulge—
“Tristen,” I whimper, an edge to my voice that I don’t recognize.
“It’s okay.” His arm bands around my waist and pulls me flush to him, pressing my erection into him. “I’m hard, too.”
“I-I-I’ve never …”
This isn’t normal. My body doesn’t react to things like other men do.
I’m broken.
Even last night … I don’t think I was ever hard like Tristen was. Like Hatley was. There was no urge to stroke myself. To reach into my pants and touch anything. There was only a little wetness that had dried overnight in the boxers when I changed them this morning.
But right now … under his watchful gaze … his warmth surrounding me, holding me close …
The backs of my eyes burn.
And my stomach turns.
Gay. Gay. Gay. Gay.
His touch leaves my waist.
He’s repulsed by me.
I jump when his fingers brush my cheek. Twitch still when that same hand cups my jaw, his thumb swiping over my cheek.
Any second now, he’ll push me down. Make me suck it back.
“You’ve never … had cherry pie? I’ll have Blu make us one.”
My focus snaps back to the glint in his and I blink. It’s so out of place to say something like that right now that I can’t stop the equally out of place chuckle that fizzles up.
“I actually haven’t. I don’t think.”
Tristen’s smile grows and it makes my stomach feel all warm again until it’s taking over all the turbulence inside me and replacing it with something so foreign that I twitch for a different reason.
I inhale deep and it’s all herbs and earth.
The scent of my undoing.
“There he is,” he whispers, his thumb swiping gently below my bottom lip.
I lean in.
Press my lips to him.
And I take my first kiss.