11. Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Peyton
I wake up curled around Max with the sound of Ashima’s singing penetrating the walls of Max’s room. She has an amazing vocal instrument with an impressive range, but she’s a morning person and doesn’t come with a snooze button.
Max is next to me. As I stretch and lengthen my muscles, his eyelids flutter.
“Doesn’t her singing drive you crazy?” I ask him. Ashima was an amazing roommate in college, but she was my best friend. With his complaints about her meddling, I’m surprised he hasn’t tired of her early bird ways.
“I hardly notice it,” he mumbles. A moment later, his mouth is gaping as though he’s slipped back asleep.
I rub my hand down along his torso. “Time to wake up.”
He yawns and rolls over to kiss me. “We should stay in bed all day.”
“I’m all for staying in bed a little longer, but I need to leave soon. I need to go apartment shopping. My sublease ends in a month, so I want to figure out my options.”
And this gives me the perfect opening to tell Max he should get his own place. With things being unclear on what our relationship is, I’ve been unsure how to broach the subject of him moving, fearing the suggestion may overstep the bounds of what’s forming between us. Luckily, Ashima hasn’t asked about it. I’d rather not admit I’ve struggled with the conversation after giving her a hard time for not being more open and direct.
But now an opening has presented itself. I trace my fingers along the swell of his pectoral muscle. “You should come look with me.”
His eyes fly wide open, and he sits up. “Wow…huh. That’s kinda fast. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, no-no-no-no. I didn’t mean with me .” I shift away from him, moving to sit closer to the edge. “I meant go at the same time to find your own place. But that doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason for us to be looking in the same area. Atlanta’s a big city. Live where you want. Never mind. Stupid suggestion. Forget I said anything.”
“No. Right. Not even sure why I confused that.” He hurriedly drops his gaze, but then it lands on my naked breasts, which seems discomfiting for both of us given our rather exposing conversation.
I grab a pillow to cover myself. “I’m totally not presuming anything about us just because we’ve been having sex. Having sex doesn’t mean we’re now in a monogamous relationship. And I know you don’t like the term STIMP, so you don’t have to worry about me calling you that.” I tuck the edges of the pillow under my arms. What I really want is to bury myself under it. “Zero assumptions here. Zero titles.”
“Um, right.”
I stare at the ceiling. The chorus of Adele’s Rolling in the Deep pierces the quiet as Ashima leans into her singing. The words of the breakup ballad are a bit too apropos.
“Though I guess since we are discussing this, I would prefer monogamy.” I hug the pillow tighter. “But if that’s too constricting, then…or maybe not, because I guess that would mean we want different things. But then again, there should be room for compromise, and I should at least discuss the rules and boundaries of an open relationship. But really, a monogamous relationship would be easiest.”
“Um, right. That’s fine. I can do that.” Max keeps his gaze on the bottom of the bed.
“Okay, good. We have an undefined monogamous relationship, right? A UMR. No, using an acronym makes it seem as though we have defined something, which is a contradiction. We should say the whole thing, right?”
“I guess.”
“Okay.” I clasp my hands before me as I try to transition back to before the conversation. “Well, with that settled, I would like to have sex before I leave.”
He looks rather shell-shocked and I can’t blame him. That whole conversation was awkward. Unfortunately, it was also pointless since I was unsuccessful in convincing him to find his own place.
But he recovers quickly. He flashes me a smoldering smile as he pulls me closer. “One order of morning sex coming right up.”