10. Darwin
SAVVY SINGS A VERY OFF-KEY rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of her lungs for the entire fifteen-minute drive to Galactic Guild.
As we pull into the parking lot, there’s no sign of it stopping. I’m becoming concerned the torture will continue when we go inside. Thankfully, there are families heading into classes at the neighboring karate place. She must care what other people think, because the Galileos stop the moment I open my car door.
I’ve managed to piss her off before we’ve even entered the building.
Not a promising start to the day.
Last night, laying in bed, I felt calm for the first time in… forever. My thoughts weren’t racing, my pulse was even, and I realized I hadn’t had an obsessive episode in days. Normally, overcoming my insomnia requires two prescription medications, total darkness, a white noise machine, and a blessing from the Pope.
This morning, I woke up with my e-reader resting on my chest, the bedroom lights still on, and sunlight streaming in through the window. I’d slept a full ten hours, and didn’t wake up once.
The only thing more disconcerting than that was the erection throbbing against my stomach. I’m a healthy adult male; morning wood happens. Ordinarily, I ignore it or jerk off purely to relieve the ache. My mind is on what I’m going to make for breakfast, what I’ll write that day, or whatever daily task I happen to be dreading.
It’s not about giving myself pleasure.
I certainly never conjure up fantasies that are so well formed and vivid, it’s as though they’ve been developing just below the surface of my consciousness, waiting for their opportunity to rise.
But that’s what happened this time.
Without stopping to think about it, my hand had drifted down, gripping myself through the cotton of my sweatpants. I groaned, my eyes shutting. No sooner had my hand pushed beneath the waistband to grasp my bare cock than a quiet, sweet female voice was whispering in my ear.
“Can I touch you, Dar?” Savvy curled closer, her breasts pushing against my side.
I tried to dismiss the fantasy, to clear my mind. With every stroke it only became more clear, though, and it felt too goddamn good to stop. Weeks of seeing her in those cock-tease shorts, of catching her familiar scent in the air around Galactic Guild, of fucking touching her, brought me to the brink. Suddenly, I was more turned on than I’d ever been in my life, and I didn’t want it to end.
Sleep-tousled pink hair fell around her shoulders as she sat up, straddling my thigh while dressed only in a thin white tank top and panties with little cherries printed on them. Her lips parted as she gazed down at me, tracing her hands over my bare abdomen and down to where my dick was tenting my sweatpants.
“Please, Dar?” she begged, and I could feel the heat from her pussy even through two layers of fabric. “I need it so bad.”
Savvy moaned as I reached down to release my cock, and leaned forward to kiss my chest as a hand that was smaller and softer than my own found my length.
I let her play, let her stroke me gently, teasingly, as the sound of our ragged breathing replaced the quiet of the room.
“How’s that?” she murmured, blinking down at me from beneath heavy lids. I knew what she wanted, knew what she’s asking for.
My hands found her ass, squeezing. “I’d like your hot little cunt better.” Bedding rustled as she crawled over me, and I could barely breathe from how badly I wanted to be inside her. “Hurry.” My voice was rough,desperate, and Savvy moaned, tugging her panties to the side and?—
I came. So hard that my entire body shook from the intensity of it. Even after I’d fallen back into my pillows, panting, it was difficult to process what just happened.
I’d masturbated to thoughts of Savvy. It was surreal, and even as minutes passed and my cum began to cool on my skin, I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.
Sex has always been off the table for me. Always. My obsessions began to be a real problem during puberty, and, while Stone was panting after every girl who might be interested in him, I was struggling to cover up my escalating intrusive thoughts. Then, as I got older, even when my mental health was at its best and I went weeks without a single episode, I still wasn’t interested.
I’ve barely tolerated being touched by another person, never mind… that. I couldn’t even fantasize about someone putting their hands on me without my skin crawling and dread expanding painfully in my chest. While I could appreciate a woman’s beauty, like any other red-blooded, heterosexual man, it’s always stopped there.
Or it did stop there, until I jerked off to fantasies of my dead best friend’s daughter.
The worst part was that as I laid there, covered in my own release, I wasn’t even surprised. Savvy has gotten under my skin in a way no one ever has, and it seems perfectly ironic that I’m having my sexual awakening several decades late for the most inappropriate woman on the planet.
A woman whom I seem to push further away every time I open my mouth, because we’ve been tiptoeing around the real problem, pretending it didn’t happen to save ourselves from embarrassment.
It needs to end.
This morning, I was having my first truly productive writing session in the better part of a year. The moment Savvy’s name came up on my phone, however, I all but threw myself over the desk to answer it, spilling coffee everywhere.
It’s pointless to pretend this hasn’t gotten wildly out of hand.
There’s no way she’s interested. Not anymore. Savvy is… she’s fucking incredible. I’ve never met someone so brave, so incredibly strong even with the weight of Stone’s choices on her shoulders. That on top of being the most effortlessly, mind-numbingly beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. How much of a draw could a man like me, with the limitations I have, be for her? I might not have a shot here, but these feelings are my problem to sort out. Hell, maybe I deserve to have my heart broken after all I’ve done, but I can’t use something that hurts her as a shield to protect myself anymore. It’s not fair, and I can’t stand the thought of her walking around feeling less about herself because of me.
This ends now.
“Savvy,” I say when the door to Galactic Guild shuts quietly behind me. My partner is already pacing across the lobby to the snack bar, pretending she didn’t hear me.
I follow, guilt and shame twisting bitterly inside me. She always knows the right things to say, senses when I’m on edge and exactly how to distract me. Meanwhile, I seem to make misstep after misstep, blundering my way through this relationship like a bull in a china shop.
Professional relationship. Not… not the other kind.
It’s becoming more difficult to silence that not-so-tiny part of me that desperately wants it to be the other kind.
“I just want to get this done and go home, Darwin,” she says over her shoulder, and there’s a weariness in her voice that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard there before.
“I just want to talk about what happened nine years ago.”
Savvy stills, the pen she just picked up going slack in her hand. Slowly, she turns to face me, folding her arms over her chest and shrinking in on herself before my eyes. Does she think I’m going to blame her?
My stomach twists, and I force myself to take a deep breath, attempting to calm my racing pulse. “What I said to you that day was a reflection of my own issues. There’s no excuse for it. Nor is there an excuse for me waiting nine years to apologize to you. I believed it would clear my conscience, but do nothing for you. I see now that was wrong.” Swallowing against the tightness in my throat, I continue, not letting myself look away. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry. For all of it.”
She lowers her eyes to the floor. “It’s… nice of you to say that, Dar, but I think it’s pretty obvious you were right.”
Her words hit me right in the chest, knocking the air from my lungs. “No. No, Savvy,” I protest, horror and guilt clawing viciously inside me. “No, I wasn’t right. It wasn’t what I thought then, and it isn’t what I think now. It’s—fuck—it’s the opposite. I’m in awe of you, and I always have been. I’ve never known someone who charges so fearlessly into life, even when she might get hurt. It’s who I wish I was, what I wish I could do.”
Her eyes are shining with tears now. She looks so small, so vulnerable, that there’s nothing I want more than to cross the five feet between us and pull her into my arms. Never in my life has hugging someone felt natural, but now, with her, it feels unnatural not to.
“I was so stupid,” she whispers, and as the first tear falls, I’ve never loathed myself more. “I had a crush on you for years. It was just one of those things, you know? Then we were spending all that time together, and I built it up in my head, making it more than it was.”
Yeah. I do know. The universe has been evening the score.
“You were brave,” I tell her, my voice rough. “If I was… If I was normal, I would have handled it better.”
Savvy’s eyes, still wet with tears, flash. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
My chest feels like it’s going to cave in. “How do you think I feel when I hear you call yourself stupid? Or a mess?”
We both fall silent, staring at each other.
“I never allowed someone close enough to touch me the way you did that day.” My smile is bitter, and I almost relish the embarrassment that comes from admitting this to her. I deserve to feel just as awful as I made Savvy feel that day. “I’m not proud of it. My disorder wasn’t under control until recently, it took a long time… It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to bore you. My point is that I would have lashed out at anyone in that situation.”
Savvy sniffs. “I’m so sorry, Dar.”
“I am too.”
Just like the other day when we stood together on the desk, or before that when I saved her from the wheel, touching her isn’t a conscious decision.
I lurch forward, and Savvy barely has time to squeak in surprise before I’m wrapping her in my arms, holding her so close that the warmth from her body bleeds into mine and the scent of her makes my head go fuzzy.
There’s no ignoring how perfectly she fits against me, or the way it makes me feel when the tension in her muscles slowly fades and her arms snake around my waist, holding me as tightly as I’m holding her.
This is… this is a fucking hug.
I’m hugging Savvy, and there’s not enough room for the range of emotions erupting inside me.
She clings to me, and I have grit my teeth to keep myself from breaking down too when her body begins to shake with silent sobs. Her face is buried in my chest, and I can feel the wet heat of her tears soaking through my shirt, but I don’t care.
For once, the gnawing fear that’s existed at the edge of my mind for as long as I can remember is nowhere to be found. Even through the pain and regret, I’m holding her. We’re holding each other, and it doesn’t feel anything but right.
I might be a coward, but she makes me want to be brave.
Without thinking, I press my lips to her temple and speak in a quiet rush in her ear. “None of this is ideal, and I’m furious with Stone for the state he left things, but you’re not rolling over and taking the shitty card you were dealt. You’re here every day, fighting and trying to make this place better. I trust you completely. I know you’re going to do this, and I’ll be here to support youevery step of the way. As long as you need me.”
Never before have I prayed or asked the universe for favors, but I do now. If I’ve ever done anything good in my life to tip the scales in my favor, please let her need me.
Savvy doesn’t respond, but burrows closer, her hands pressed flat to my back.
I never want this to end—could happily stand here holding her for hours—but too soon, Savvy’s arms relax. Reluctantly, I lean away to see her face, and the look of vulnerable, raw hope that I see there burns through me.
She wipes her eyes. “I was so stupid to do that. Stupid not to realize you aren’t interested. Stupid not to realize you don’t want… you know.”
My head tilts to the side as I turn her words over in my mind. Aren’t interested, not weren’t interested. It’s a subtle distinction, but I seize upon it like a drowning man. She’s thought about this recently, and, whether she realizes it or not, my little tornado just showed her hand.
She wants me.
How do I know I can actually do this, though? I’m too fucking old for her, and just because my obsessions have improved doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. The episode before she came back into my life is proof of how quickly it can all go to hell. I have no way of knowing for sure if the way I’m feeling or the things I want from her are all in my head.
What if I try to kiss her and gag? What if I press my hand between her thighs and feel the wetness she’s made for me, then wrench away to scrub my skin raw? I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt her again, if I gave her hope and snatched it back.
There’s so much against us. So many reasons not to try.
“I’m not in the same place I was then. Therapy has helped. I’m medicated. Things got bad after my series ended, and Stone…” I push past the sick twist of guilt at the sound of my old friend’s name. “Being here and helping you with Galactic Guild is the closest I’ve ever felt to normal. My mind feels like my own.”
Savvy looks at me, and I can see her wondering, can see that tiny flicker of hope behind her eyes. “I’ve thought you hated me for so long.” She lets out a watery, miserable laugh. “I’ve been acting so crazy.”
“I can hardly blame you.”
“Still.” She makes a face. “Sometimes it feels like I mess up everything I touch.”
Everything feels like a mess right now. The pair of us are caught in a tangled web of pain and regret, past and present, assumptions and misunderstandings. Does any of it matter anymore? Really?
I swallow around my heart, which is suddenly lodged in my throat. “What if we start fresh? Right now.”
Savvy’s eyebrows pull together, and she leans back against the snack bar. “What, you mean just… let it all go?”
“Yes. From today on, it’s just you and me, figuring it out as we go. Partners.”
The world seems to slow as the words hang in the air between us. She could say no. I try to prepare myself for that. Maybe she’ll feel there’s too much history. Maybe I’ve hurt her too badly. Maybe?—
“Okay.” Savvy holds out her hand, her soft smile letting me know she’s remembering how I offered the same thing our very first night here. “Partners.”
We both pause when I reach out, staring at my ungloved hand inches from hers. The skin isn’t angry and red like it was the day she came to my house, but it’s impossible to miss the rough spots and healing cracks, evidence of just how far gone I’d been only a few weeks ago.
I’ve touched her since then, multiple times, and her tears drying on my shirt are proof. Still, this feels different. Deliberate.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Savvy says, her voice almost unbearably understanding. “I’ll accept a verbal agreement.” She smiles gently, showing she means it.
This feels important, though, the first true test of what I’ve been thinking—feeling. If I can touch her, skin to skin, and not just as some kind of instinctual reaction… I don’t allow myself to think further than that.
Another heartbeat, then two, and I take her hand in mine.
There are a lot of things I feel as we stand there holding on to each other, but none of them are bad.
“Partners,” I agree.
When our hands fall back to our sides, Savvy bites her lip, obviously apprehensive. “Can I ask you something? It’s kind of a favor.”
My answer comes quickly. “Anything.”
I mean it. Does she want a sports car? A back rub? The moon? Whatever the case, I’ll make it happen. This woman has me wrapped around her little finger, and I doubt she has the slightest idea.
“My dad’s ashes.”
Not what I was expecting, but okay. “What about them?”
She winces. “I don’t know what to do with them. He’s been sitting on the kitchen table for over a month. Not a great eternal resting place. I’m mad at him, don’t get me wrong, but he was still my dad.”
“I… have an idea, actually. For something he would like.” I rub the back of my neck. “Let me see if it’s possible before I run it by you.”
Savvy shakes her head. “You don’t need to run it by me. I…” Her gaze lifts to mine. “I trust you.”