Chapter 15 #2
‘I didn’t tell you everything that happened when I was sick,’ he says, still close enough that I feel the heat from his body,
‘One day, my heart stopped completely. I was very much,’ he slices that same thumb across his neck, ‘gone. You’re looking
at a resurrected man.’
His eyes stay locked on mine, and in any other situation, at any other time, this reveal would surprise me, but something
about the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like that’s not what he wants. It feels like he’s testing me.
‘A ghost,’ I muse, keeping my voice low for fear of disrupting the charged space between us.
He hums softly. ‘Something like that.’
‘Would that explain why you’ve been haunting my nightmares?’
He tilts his head, and I catch a glimpse of something sinful in his expression before the light from his laptop turns off,
plunging us into crackling pitch-blackness that sends goosebumps along my skin.
I feel him shift closer, and his murmur is a caress against my lips. ‘Honey, if you’ve been dreaming about me, I think we
both know why that is.’
And then he picks up his pillow and heads to the bedroom, leaving me and my roaring heart alone in the kitchen.
My ascent into consciousness takes longer than usual.
There’s a weight on my hip and something uncomfortable under my side and the duvet’s only covering half of me, but my bed is warm.
I wriggle backwards towards the source of the heat, stretching slowly, and something hard presses into my thigh. In a split
second of exhilarating heat, the weight on my hip changes; fingers digging into my skin and pulling me closer, and there’s
a quiet groan from behind me, until I understand, in terrible, wonderful clarity, and clumsily scoot away as quickly as my
sleepy brain will allow.
After a sharp intake of breath, a bleary voice mumbles, ‘Shit. Sorry.’ Max flops on to his stomach and flings his arm off
the side of the bed. ‘Dead arm,’ he says, voice muffled by the pillow.
I say the first thing that comes to mind. ‘Did you know there are three types of erection? Psychogenic, reflexogenic and nocturnal?’
‘Ever heard of good morning?’ His voice is rough with sleep, and when he turns his head towards me with what seems like a Herculean effort, his eyes
are still closed. ‘Too early for dirty talk.’
‘It’s not–I’m trying to do the opposite,’ I say, unwinding my eye mask from the bird’s nest of my hair. ‘You were in my dream.’
He grunts. ‘I mean, you were just there. Not in a weird way.’ Definitely a weird way, actually. Oh god, what if he knows already?
What if I sleep-talked and he knows that in my dream, he seemed to alternate between wearing those stupid charcoal sweatpants,
and nothing at all? Please, no. I level my voice and say, ‘You’re being quiet.’
He clears his throat and finally says a sentence without the words blending together. ‘Because I woke up twelve seconds ago,
Dylan. Let me get my bearings.’
‘Okay. Sorry.’
‘You’re weirder than I thought.’ For a moment, I’m transported back in time. All those years I spent trying so hard to say
and do the right thing that I’d end up tying myself in knots and putting my foot in it anyway. How it felt to be berated for
it. But then Max opens his eyes, slightly puffy but already glittering with mischief, and he adds, ‘I like it.’
And somehow, I know it’s not the same.
He pulls himself up to lean against his pillows and I analyse the scene: the scattered remains of the meagre cushion wall
I attempted to build between us last night, most of the duvet hanging off Max’s side of the bed, the edge of my pillow overlapping
with his.
‘I didn’t know, by the way,’ he says, rubbing his sternum. There’s a red mark below his collarbone from one of the errant
cushions. It feels too intimate seeing him like this.
’Know what?’
‘That there are three types of erection. Thank you for enlightening me.’ I cover my face and he laughs. It’s a nice thing
to hear, first thing in the morning. You know. All things considered. ‘I don’t think there’s any getting around the fact you
just woke up pressed against my dick, but we don’t need to diagnose it.’
Yes. Good. I won’t think about it ever again. Maybe. ‘Got it. Did you sleep well?’
‘The mattress was great. The company even better.’ He tosses me a sleepy wink and my stomach dips, a seagull diving towards
the ocean. ‘But your barrier was shit.’
I ignore him and get up to open the curtains. I’m greeted with views of a dusty-blue sky over the ocean, the early-morning
sunlight sending excitement through my veins. ‘I’m going to head out for my walk. Are you going on a run?’
At his silence, I turn, only to find him brazenly looking at my ass, eyebrows raised. I tug my shorts down from where they’ve
ridden up, and he blinks a few times and grins, meeting my eyes without an ounce of shame. I wait for the discomfort that
usually comes with people looking at me too closely, but something about Max doing it feels different. Like maybe my body
might be worth appreciating. Like he could be the one to do it.
I manage something close to disdain when I say, ‘Could you at least pretend you’re not checking me out?’
‘Why would I do that?’
I head over to my chest of drawers and search for an outfit, flicking through the neatly folded clothes like they’re records in a collection. ‘I don’t know, etiquette?’
‘But then how would you know I was checking you out?’
I can’t help the exasperated sigh that escapes me. ‘You’re so good at saying things that sound like a valid argument when
actually they’re not.’
‘Dylan, all I just heard was “you’re so good”. I zoned out after that.’