Chapter 12
ASH
We grab sandwiches from a charming little cafe and we walk as we eat, aimless and quiet.
We take in the sights, the sun setting at last, and the breeze coming off the river now cool.
We pass loud clubs and bustling taverns and markets already closed for the day, narrowly dodging a trolley as it furiously rings its bell at us.
From time to time, our fingers brush and linger a second or two too long to be accidental. I want to take his hand, even just for a moment. I want to squeeze it tight.
Back in the hotel room, we take turns in the shower, and I’m gracious enough to let Sam go first, even though I hate when I can smell myself.
It seems to me my sweat reeks of whatever greasy approximation of Mexican food we consumed at lunch.
It’s leaking straight from my pores, which won’t do at all, since we’re sharing a bed again.
And I’m positively reeling from everything he’s told me this evening.
That not only has he been with a man, but that man is now dying.
A swing and a miss. God, no wonder he’s so hesitant.
The first male lover you ever had gets HIV.
Why would you ever want to be with another man again if you could help it?
My chest clenches. It’s a fist as tight as a knot in my chest. I can’t describe how I’m feeling. Sorrow, loss—it’s some echo of losing Ben, but also the way Sam’s gone and slipped through my fingers, too. Stupid, in light of everything.
It’s just that I wanted one thing, and now I can’t have that.
That’s okay, though, I’m okay. Tomorrow we get to Miami. Tomorrow this is over. Tomorrow I don’t have to think about any of it ever again, because he’ll be gone.
I get out, brush my teeth—with my own toothbrush, not his—and I comb out my wet hair.
I pull on a fresh new T-shirt and a pair of shorts.
For a second I think I look good—my legs look especially long and slender, and even the gnarly scab on my side has healed to the point where I feel okay about leaving the dressing off—but then I remember that I can’t actually seduce Sam.
“Fucking hell,” I mumble to my reflection. “You were so close.” Because what are the odds of hitching a ride with a hot bisexual man that I actually, for once, want? One who maybe even wanted me and had showed all the signs of doing so.
But here I am again, consoling myself that it’s better this way, starting over with no attachments at all.
It’s not like I could ever really have anything with him.
I can never, ever tell him the actual truth about…
well, a good seventy percent of my life.
(And here the devil on my shoulder chimes in with, Isn’t that the great part about starting over? You can just lie about everything!)
The thing is, I kind of want to. It’s so crazy.
I want to tell him things. I want to tell him everything, even though I can’t.
I want to be earnest and open and see if he’d accept me that way, and it’s literally the first time in my life I’ve wanted to do that.
So much of my life is one big, shitty secret, or a series of them.
Can’t though. Can’t tell him. Can’t fuck him. Can’t do anything.
I open the bathroom door and go back out into the room. Sam’s on the phone, and as I round the corner he catches my gaze. “Gotta go,” he says. “Callin’ collect and all. Love you!” And he smacks the switch hook quick to hang up before dumping the receiver back in its cradle.
“Who was that?” I ask.
“My mom,” he informs me. “Just telling her what I’m up to. C’mere.”
I obey, sitting before him on the bed. “Did you tell her that you picked up a stray?”
“Nope.” He reaches up and smooths my wet locks back from my face, tucking them behind my ears. It’s a tender gesture that makes me sort of melt, and really, he has to stop this. I can’t take much more of it. “I’m under the impression you don’t want me to do anything like that.”
“You’re right,” I agree.
“She’d love you, though.” He tilts his head to the side. “I’m pretty sure. And she’d just love fattening you up, too. I can already hear her harping on you about getting enough this or that…whatever nutrient thing she’s on that day.”
I glance down at myself. “I’m not that thin.”
“You’re not.” He’s quick to reassure me. “You look good. My mom just thinks everyone should be like, two hundred and fifty pounds minimum. It’s a Southern mom thing. She thinks I’m too thin some days.”
Which is funny, considering Sam might be the fittest guy I’ve ever seen.
Including right now, sitting cross-legged on the bed in just a silky pair of basketball shorts and his perfect round, tan pecs with their large, dark nipples right in my face.
The universe wants to really rub in this whole ordeal.
“I’m beat,” I say abruptly. “We should turn in early, yeah? So we can get up and do one of those riverboat things.”
“Sure.” He’s agreeable enough.
We crawl under the covers. The bed’s as big as Mr. Bigshot’s, I note, as Sam turns off the lamp on his side of the bed, and I reluctantly roll over to do the same.
Large enough that the distance between us might as well span a continent.
I shouldn’t find myself fighting for blankets tonight. Or him up my ass in the morning.
It’s for the best. It really, really is.
I punch my pillow and then bury my face in it. “Goodnight, Sam,” I mumble.
Sam doesn’t respond right away. There’s a second where I think he might’ve fallen asleep already, and then he says, “Hey, Ash…I was thinking.”
“That’s not good.”
It gets a laugh out of him. “You know the game we played earlier?”
“The one that wasn’t much of a game?” I yawn. “The one that had us almost ripping each other’s faces off? That game?”
He ignores me. “I was thinking we could play it again. And this time, we’ll be totally honest with each other.”
Well, that shuts me up. The implications are immediately obvious to me. I resist the urge to roll over and look at him; my breath seems loud and fast suddenly. “Oh,” I say.
The sheets rustle behind me. The mattress quakes and dips, creaking. “Do you want me to go first?” He sounds closer now.
I seize my lip between my teeth as I stare at the shadow of the lamp on the nightstand. I chew it furiously. “Okay,” I manage at last. “Ask away.”
“Are you into me, Ash?”
Part of me wants to yell objection, leading!
Another part of me almost wants to chide him for the schoolgirlishness of it all, the coyness and insipid flirtation, and doesn’t understand the point of it.
They’re small parts, though, meaningless and infinitesimal.
The rest of me has gone suddenly very warm and tight.
There’s a breathless moment before I can say, “Yeah. I am.”
“Yeah?” That deep, husky voice of his velvety against my ear. He’s right behind me, draping himself against my back as one hand plays along my hip where my tee’s ridden up. “Your turn.”
Maybe I’m supposed to play around a bit back.
Prolong the moment, make more of a game of it.
I can’t, though. I don’t want to play, I just want him.
I feel like I’ve been wanting him for an eternity and having to talk myself out of it, over and over.
I go ahead and ask the obvious, confirm it: “Are you into me?”
“Oh, yeah. I really fuckin’ am.” His arm comes around me and pulls me back against his body and I can’t believe this is happening, actually. Right now. My breath catches as his erection rides up my ass. “What do you think about that?”
My brain is starting to empty out. “Sam—”
“Hm?” He kisses my cheek and I gasp like he’s done something far naughtier, and then his lips trail down my jaw to my neck. “Want me to fuck you?” he whispers against my skin.
I roll my head back, give him more access. “Yes.”
One leg nudges between mine. “How bad?” His fingers glide under my shirt, skimming my hipbone, and my breath catches in my throat. He swipes his tongue along the edge of my ear. “Tell me, butterfly.”
I’ve been called honey and baby and sweetie and everything in between—and worse—but this one’s a sucker punch, leaving me momentarily breathless.
I’m going to putty in his hands; I’ll do anything.
I’m writhing against him, my hands sliding along his forearm, and he sighs into my hair.
“Touch me.” It’s a whimper, a plea, wrenched almost inaudibly from me. “Kiss me.”
He noses my ear. “Wanna hear you say it first.”
“God. I’ve wanted you to fuck me since I saw you at the bar.” I turn my face into his. “Sam, please.”
Then his bruised mouth meets mine at last. Soft and tentative at first, an exploratory brush of lips, like he’s asking if it’s okay, hands coming up to thread through my hair as my tongue swipes his soft lower lip.
I shift in his arms until I’m facing him and his knee goes between my legs again, but this time I can push against him.
I’m shameless with it, moaning into his mouth as our kisses become more urgent, my arms around his neck and my leg around his waist. I don’t think my dick’s ever been harder.
Then he’s breaking the kiss, going for my throat again, kissing and sucking like a high schooler getting to second base for the first time in the backseat of his mom’s minivan, and I don’t give a shit.
I throw my head back and let him have it all, mark me up as much as he wants, because it feels good.
It feels good.
That realization strikes a chord: that this is all mine. This is my pleasure to do what I want with it.
My palms slide down Sam’s shoulders and pecs, squeezing, and he groans into my neck.
I push him back onto the bed and climb atop him as he grunts, startled by my forwardness, and his hands find my hips.
I pull my shirt off and throw it to the floor as he grinds his cock up into me and, god, the fabric of our shorts is hardly any barrier at all. Might as well be wearing nothing.