Chapter Nine Kami #2
We didn’t just do it once. We didn’t just do it twice.
We did it over and over, sometimes slowly, whispering in each other’s ears—profound things, sweet and glittery, sometimes even funny.
We did it fast, too, talking dirty, whispering naughty words to each other.
We let out everything we’d held back for months.
* * *
I don’t know when I fell asleep, I just know that when I opened my eyes the next morning, the sun was bright and shining through the thin checkered curtains on the windows.
I reached out to turn off the alarm on my cell phone and felt someone groaning under me, trying to wake.
I looked down to see Thiago’s eyes, Thiago’s smile, the most handsome smile I’d ever seen.
I don’t know how, but I’d fallen asleep on top of him, naked.
I felt myself getting hot with embarrassment, and I pulled away, but he grabbed me in what felt like a jujitsu hold, and I couldn’t escape.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, pressing his nose into my neck and pulling me onto his blazing-hot bare body.
I didn’t answer, I just kissed his neck, wondering if I would be able to keep enjoying this incredible experience or if the day would bring me back to my problems.
My phone dinged and dinged as messages came in. Some of them, I knew, would be from my mother.
“I need to go home,” I said, but Thiago gripped me tight.
“This is your home,” he said as I struggled to reach to my phone.
“Calling this a home is a bit of an exaggeration, no?” I quipped. I loved the way he just shrugged. Appearances didn’t matter to Thiago. He didn’t care what other people thought.
“You make it feel like an oasis,” he replied, kissing me on the tip of my nose.
“I was kidding,” I told him, “I love it here.” I reached up and stroked his hair. I’d wanted to do that so many times. Finally, I could.
“Who’d have thought?” Thiago said, musing to himself. “Compared to your house, I mean…”
Smirking, I said, “Yeah, like your mom’s place is a shack.”
He laughed. “You know your house is the fanciest one in the neighborhood. Everyone else is just trying to keep up.”
“I’d say they’re doing a pretty good job,” I said. “Speaking of, doesn’t it scare you, being out here alone?” I wouldn’t have lasted a second sleeping out there by myself.
“What would I be scared of? Wolves?”
Terrified, looking out the window, I asked, “Are there wolves out here?”
“We’re on the edge of a forest. It’s not likely they’d come close to us, but yeah, there are wolves.” He stopped talking and nibbled on my ear.
“Do you really think a wild animal could come after us?” I asked, returning to the subject.
“The only animals I’m worried about are human beings,” he said, standing up and leaving me there, naked and cold.
“You know this conversation is scaring the shit out of me?”
He grinned and took a frying pan out from a small drawer under the sink. “If you’re with me, nothing bad will happen to you, I promise you that. Now, are you in the mood for pancakes?”
I nodded, feeling around in the sheets for my underwear and bra and put them on, not wanting to walk around naked.
Suddenly something soft hit me on the head. I lifted it off and saw it was one of his T-shirts.
“Throw that on,” he said, and as I did, I felt like a fan at a concert when the singer touches their hand. Was I that hung up on him? He looked at me with lust in his eyes, grinned, and said, “It looks good on you.”
“And you look good without it,” I told him, gawking at his abs and chiseled body.
“Yeah?” he said, taking out the ingredients for the batter.
“Let me help you,” I said, standing next to him and watching his every move. I couldn’t help it. I loved being in the kitchen, I was good at cooking, and it was hard for me to give up control.
The two of us cooked in comfortable silence, and I couldn’t help remembering the day Taylor and I had made pancakes at his house.
He had no idea what he was doing, and all he did was get in the way and mess everything up.
We even got in a food fight, throwing flour and batter all over each other until we were both lying on the floor with a mess all around us.
I thought his mother would kill us when she saw the kitchen.
That made me realize how different the two brothers were.
Thiago was meticulous, a perfectionist, but I missed Taylor’s spark, which came across no matter who he was with.
I had to understand something, though. I couldn’t have both of them, I couldn’t mix them together in a test tube and create the perfect guy.
The perfect guy didn’t exist, and the sooner I admitted to myself that Taylor was gone for good, the better.
Thiago set the table while I made coffee. Then we sat down for breakfast.
“How are we going to handle things at school today?” he asked.
“Handle what?” I asked, wiping my mouth with a paper towel.
“We both need to go, but we shouldn’t be seen arriving together. I think we should wait for everything to settle and for my brother to get used to the idea of…”
“Of us?” I asked.
Thiago reached up and pinched my earlobe. “You know nobody can know about us, right?”
I nodded.
It wouldn’t be a good look, to say the least. They’d probably fire him if they found out.
“We’ll see each other here, when we can, okay?” he said. That reassuring look on his face made all my doubts melt away.
I wished I could hide out there forever, but I had class.
Even today, I still ask myself what would have happened if we had decided to skip that day and stay there.
Things happen for a reason, I’m sure of that. Life takes twists and turns like a roller coaster, and you never know when the ride will end. Or maybe you never get off.
We tidied up quickly, showered together in the tiny bathroom, stole a few more kisses and enough caresses to keep our bodies burning inside for the rest of the day, before we had to call it quits. It was time to go.
Outside, it was snowy, and it was hard to get the motorcycle started.
By seven thirty, Thiago was dropping me off at home. I looked over at his mother’s house and prayed Taylor couldn’t see us.
“Kiss me,” he said, putting a hand on the back of my neck and drawing me in.
One more kiss and a few sweet words, and then we parted ways.
If I had known what lay in store for us that day, there are a thousand other things I would have said. I would have drawn that moment out for the rest of my life.