19. Dani #4
“God, I never should have come here.” He sits down on the bed and drops his head in his hands. “I should have just taken you to Paris.”
“You know, your go-to can’t be kidnapping people whenever you’re feeling emotionally unstable.”
He’s up, his height and bulk suddenly alarmingly huge in the tiny bedroom. He shoves me against the wall. My teeth rattle and so do the little knickknacks on the shelf above the bed.
His mouth is almost hovering over mine. “Shut the fuck up. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“Knock, knock!” His mom doesn’t even give us a chance to say “come in” before she swings the door open.
Graham glances down, realizes what it looks like, and steps back, releasing me.
“We are not having sex,” I say to assure his mother. “Right now. In your house. Of course we generally, as a rule, have sex, because I’m not a virgin. As a woman of my advanced age, that would be—”
“Dani needs to sleep off all that rum,” Graham interrupts me.
“Yes. Sleep it off. In the bed. With my boyfriend. Together.” I grab a fistful of his ass.
He hisses out a breath.
“All right. I just wanted to know if you liked French toast. I never asked if you had any allergies.” Aurora smiles.
“Love it. Fried bread and me are old friends,” I promise.
“All right. Sleep tight.”
“What is your problem?” Graham’s furious when the door closes.
I flop down face-first on the bed. Everything wobbles unnervingly.
“Is this a waterbed?”
“You need to take a shower. What is wrong with you?”
“The last time you were with me and I didn’t shower, it’s because you locked me in your—”
His large hand comes down to fully cover my mouth. He’s half on me.
“Dani, I’m not telling you again.” The deep voice drops an octave. “Don’t fuck with me.”
I lick his palm.
He hisses, jerking his hand away.
Graham’s not in the room when I get out of the shower. I’m mildly more sober. Enough to curse the fact that for some reason I let my family anywhere near my suitcase.
Instead of my usual flannel PJs, there’s little lace-lined shorts and a matching spaghetti-strap silky top.
They’d look sweet and modest on a girl less curvy than me.
On my body? I look like I’m cosplaying one of those anime sexy-baby cartoons.
My boobs strain against the silky fabric.
The spaghetti straps are definitely not enough support.
Dani: I hate my family.
I angle the phone up, taking photos to send to Piper.
In the screen I see the door open, and Graham steps in.
“Oh, I, uh, whoops.”
His face is dark. He’s wearing soft black sweatpants. And no shirt.
I drool a little bit. Then I realize there is basically nothing between my nipples and him except for a quickly failing silk shirt.
“I know you don’t wear that to bed. I thought I told you not to fuck with me.”
His palm is warm. I feel his fingers twist on my neck.
He’s about to kiss me, my inner male-starved, attention-seeking teen girl screams. Then I realize it’s the alcohol and all the food. My blood sugar’s spiked, and that comedown is going to be brutal.
“I, uh… Which side do you want?” I pull at the covers, miss, and almost topple over.
“Why are you wearing that?” He doesn’t want to drop it.
So he doesn’t find me sexy. Good to know. Good to know.
He goes to his suitcase and pulls out a T-shirt. “Put that on.”
I pull his shirt over my head and shimmy the silk spaghetti-strap top out from underneath it.
“Go to the bathroom to change.”
“Don’t need to—ta-da!”
I throw the silk shirt on my suitcase. It misses.
I feel his eyes on me as I scurry to the bed, pulling back the covers.
“I can also go downstairs and pretend to read. Like, oh, I’ve got jet lag. Or my dog has separation anxiety and we need to be together.”
He pulls back the covers on his side and slips into the bed. His body takes up the entire mattress.
I gingerly scoot onto the very edge of the mattress. I have never, ever, in my entire life, shared a bed with a male.
This is so weird. How do people do this for, like, decades? There’s just, like, a man in your bed. At night. Every night. Also, why is he generating so much body heat?
His hand is like an inch away from my butt. I slap down the thought of him inching that hand closer to me, his fingers feeling me through the thin fabric of the shorts and my panties. Which I am wearing, thank you very much. Though they are uncomfortably wet.
My back feels tight. I should flip over, but then that would put my boobs close to him.
I can feel him breathing—like the mattress moves whenever he inhales or exhales. It’s not right to be this close to another person.
I roll over onto my back and cross my arms over the top of the covers, but now our arms are touching.
“Stop manspreading,” I finally whisper.
He sighs and scoots over. “I’m surprised you’re sober enough to have that much spatial awareness.”
“I don’t do dry January,” I whisper. “I do couch-snack January. But I’m really thinking I might do, like, a dry April or something.”
He lets out an annoyed sigh.
“Paris,” I whisper. “Let’s go to Paris.”
There’s another annoyed breath. “I don’t want you puking in my plane.”