Chapter 30
Lucy
I question if he’s telling me the truth or if he’s just flirting. By the twinkle in his eye, he might just be flirting with me. I fix my hair, putting a loose strand behind my ear, and then the food comes. We eat in comfortable silence. He steals a few bites from my plate and hums.
“Are you sure they won’t mind?” I ask, feeling nervous that his friends will have a lot to say about this. I’ve seen the Hawthorne House rules. No serious girlfriends in the house. They seem to have a strict no-girls-allowed policy.
“They won’t care. You’ve seen the parties we throw.”
“Okay.” I drink my water. He drinks his.
“Do we need to grab things from your mom’s?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No, I have everything in my car.”
He pauses. “You can seriously stay with me, Lucy. Okay? It’s no problem.”
I must sound like a homeless person to him. I don’t know if it’s smart to tell him this, but I doubt he’ll talk to his sister about it. “Penelope said that she has a room available.”
“Oh,” he says. “Are you taking her up on that?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I’m trying to give Gianna space, but she fully kicked me out. I don’t know what I’m doing, Bens. Thanks for offering your place. The drive is brutal.”
“Not a big road tripper, huh?”
“A road trip I can do, but a daily commute of forty-five minutes is not for me. I miss walking to campus.”
Our waitress comes over with the check. I reach for it, and he kisses my hand. “Don’t worry about it, babe.”
The October air bites through this hoodie on the sidewalk. I pull it tighter around me. He shoves his large hand into the pocket and intertwines his fingers with mine.
“Cold?”
“A little.”
In the truck, he has his right hand on my thigh and his left on the wheel. He drops me at my car in the lot off the math building and gets out before I do to open my door.
“Follow me back.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go slow.” He kisses me on the corner of my mouth and closes the door for me. I lick my lips, wishing he had kissed me fully instead. My body is left tingling.
The drive to Hawthorne is six minutes. I follow his taillights up Ash and right on State and left on Hawthorne. I argue with myself the entire way that I should not be sleeping at his house. I shouldn’t be coming over to his house if there’s no party period.
When I park, he’s already at my door. “Let me help with your bags.”
I shiver as I hand them over. My nerves are on high alert as I look around for any witnesses. It’s just us out here. I pass him two of my bags, and I hold my school bag. I’m only here for tonight, I tell myself. This is just a one-night thing.
My heart somersaults when I see that the living room is full of very large men. We’re walking in right when they’re cleaning up for dinner.
“Reeve, man, we saved you a plate.”
The guys shuffle around, cleaning up after themselves. It’s quite the sight to witness. I thought boys didn’t clean. The four of them look over when I walk in.
The room goes quiet, and their eyes have questions that their mouths don’t ask. My face goes hot anyway. I lift my hand in a small wave because my mouth won’t work.
“Hi, Lucy.” Stanley says it first, in the careful version of his voice.
Benson announces in a loud voice, “Lucy’s going to stay here as long as she needs.”
He places his hand on the small of my back and ushers me in the direction of his room.
I lift my hand to correct him. “I’m only here for tonight.”
The room absorbs both statements. Blue glances at Percy across the rug. Percy glances at Blue. Stanley opens his mouth, closes it, and reaches for another chip.
Rowan says from the kitchen counter, “You can stay as long as you need to, Lucy.”
“Thank you,” I mutter back.
Benson steers me toward the stairs with his hand on the small of my back.
His bedroom smells like him. His bed’s made. His wall has more things scribbled on it. His hockey gear overruns his desk.
Benson sets my bags down and starts cleaning up his gear. “Sorry,” he says. “Wasn’t expecting visitors.”
It smells like Benson in here, boyish sweat mixed with the locker room smell and clean sheets. When he finishes putting his gear to the side, he asks, “What time do you usually go to sleep?”
He’s asking a genuine question, and I don’t want to ruin his routine. “Around ten. What about you?”
“Now.”
I look at the clock on his desk. It’s barely past nine. “Really?” I can tell he’s serious, so I fill the silence with, “Okay. Let’s get ready for sleep.”
He grabs a towel and says, “I’m going to shower. You good?”
I nod. “Yes. Thank you.”
He leaves the bedroom and closes the door behind him. I hear his footsteps to the bathroom.
I’m standing alone in his bedroom, and it dawns on me that I’ve never slept over a boy’s house before.
He’s the first. I walk to the wall and feel like I’m intruding when I see his entire life scheduled out on calendars and schedules.
He has practice at six. His game days are in red.
His class times are written in blue. It looks like he has travel days for games.
Our tutoring sessions are handwritten in pencil. I look at the Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next three weeks. LUCY. LUCY. LUCY. LUCY. LUCY. LUCY.
My name is on his wall. He has written me into his schedule. My heart feels light when I imagine him writing down my name on here. It puts into perspective that we’ve been around each other a lot these past few weeks. In the window, I catch my reflection, and I’m smiling at the wall like an idiot.
The bedroom door opens, and I turn to run and hide the fact that I’m staring at his calendar.
But my throat clams up when I see he’s dripping wet in his towel.
My mouth drops open. The towel is low on his hips.
His hair is wet and pushed back. His chest is bare, and there’s water sliding down the line of his stomach toward the white of the towel, and I watch it go for two inches before I tell my eyes to do something else.
But my eyes don’t want to do anything else.
I remind myself that I’ve seen this body before, I’ve had my hands on it, it’s even been on me, against me, inside me. I’ve even seen it wet inside the shower.
“You okay?”
I swallow, darting my eyes to his. “Yeah. Yes. I’m okay.”
His laugh is warm and quiet. The sound travels through me, landing in my core. I love his smile. I also don’t want to gawk all night, but he’s walking towards me. I’m Camdenthless, staring at him. He leans down and opens a drawer to his dresser.
“You sure?” His wet hair drops onto his shoulders.
I reach down and pull out my toiletry bag and my pajamas. “Yes. Yeah.”
I hold my things against my body and shuffle out of his bedroom. The door clicks behind me, and I look down the hall. I am going to have to learn how to be in a room with him if I’m going to stay here. I clutch my things tighter and walk to the bathroom nervously.
The bathroom is clean, and I’m surprised. I make my shower fast. I brush my teeth at his sink with his toothpaste because I didn’t pack mine. I put on my pajamas and then I clip my hair up to wash my face.
When I come back to the room, he’s in bed already. The sight of his long legs reaching the end of the bed makes my heart drop. He looks down at my pajama shorts and then my face.
“That was fast.”
I close the door behind me and mutter, “Yeah.” I walk over to my bags and put my dirty clothes inside. Then I walk to the bed and take my side.
He puts his phone on the nightstand and asks, “What does your Wednesday look like?”
I exhale. “Real Analysis at nine. Tutoring desk hours from eleven to one. Topology at two. Standing meeting with the tutoring coordinator at three.”
“That’s a lot of math.”
“What’s yours look like?”
He replies, “Practice at six. Class at ten in Wilson. Class at one in Smith. Workout at three. Film at five. Dinner at six-thirty. Rowan’s cooking.”
“That’s a lot of things for a Wednesday,” I say thoughtfully. How does he still have energy?
“Yeah.” He pauses. “Oh, I forgot. Bed at nine with Lucy.”
I roll my eyes and blush.
He nudges me with his elbow. “I have you on my schedule. Don’t worry.”
“Bens, I can’t stay two nights in a row.”
“Yes, you can.”
I look at him.
He whispers, “Why not?”
“Because,” I say, not knowing what I’m going to say next. “I just shouldn’t. I don’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing.”
“Look at us,” I say. “You would be asleep if I weren’t here.”
He shakes his head. “I’m happy that you’re here. I could get used to it.”
“Don’t,” I say softly. “This is just for one night.”
“You could have the whole house to yourself this weekend if you wanted.”
“What?”
He turns on the pillow to look at me. I turn to my side and look back. “I’m leaving Friday morning for a game.”
“There’s no Hawthorne House party?”
He shakes his head. “No, we have two away games this weekend. I won’t be back until Saturday.”
I process this. “Do you travel a lot for hockey?”
He nods. “Oh, yeah. All the time.”
“Huh,” I say.
“What?” he smiles.
I look at his teeth. “Do you like it?”
He nods. “Yeah. I love it.” He reaches over and brushes my wet hair behind my ear. “Ready for lights out?”
I nod.
He reaches over and clicks his lamp off. The room falls dark. The strip of streetlight through the gap in the curtain is the only light, and my eyes adjust slowly until I can see his face on the pillow next to me. My hands are on my stomach over the covers.
“Are you a cuddler?”
I smile to myself and think about whether I am or not. I haven’t ever shared a bed with a boy I liked, so I have no idea.
“I don’t know.”
He reaches for me, rubbing his hand on my shoulder. “You don’t know?”
His touch lights me up inside as I shake my head. “I’ve never cuddled.”
“Never?”
“No.”
He pauses, placing his arm around me. “I can fix that.”
I roll into him. My head finds the space between his shoulder and his jaw. My back is pressed against his chest. His arm comes around my body, tugging me flesh against him.
“Comfortable?” he whispers in my ear.