Chapter 25
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
ZIGGY
Ijolt awake, confused by the pressure against my front, and blink down at the person sleeping next to me. Kennedy’s crushing my arm under his weight, and his scent has filled my pillows and sheets in a way that makes me lightheaded for a moment.
He’s here.
I … am so confused.
Drips of memory from last night come back to me, and unlike last time, it’s a fraction easier to believe it happened. Easier, because we’re both tangled together, almost naked. And my arm is getting pins and needles.
I try to slide it out without waking him, but when he only cuddles it tighter, I give up. I clear my throat loudly, giving my arm a solid tug, and while I’d love for him to keep sleeping sweetly, my arm is really fucking sore.
Except apparently, he’s impossible to wake up. He goes on sleeping while I lose all feeling in my arm.
“K-Kennedy?” I try, but it’s so soft I have no hope of waking him that way. Why can’t I have a deep voice? A loud, confident one? The kind of voice where no one would have anything to tease me about anytime I opened my mouth.
When it comes to Kennedy, I know I trust him. I know logically that I’m safe with him, and he’d never be someone who’d ridicule my flaws. But it’s so goddamn hard to forget all the times I tried to speak up for myself, and it only made things worse.
To me, speaking has always been stressful. It’s always been a land mine of abuse. Even with all this distance between me and my tormentors, speaking is associated with pain. Fear. Embarrassment.
It’s easier to rewire an entire house than my own brain.
I’m so tired of being scared.
I wouldn’t talk either if I sounded like that.
I know I’ve come a long way from the boy who wouldn’t say a word, but I hate that it’s still so hard. That I can’t even wake the man I feel safe with and not feel like my throat is closing over.
He asked why I’m not scared of the dark.
The dark has always been where I’ve escaped.
My demons don’t exist out there. They all live inside me.
I hate that I’ve allowed them to do that.
I catch an inhale in my chest and force my voice louder. “Kenny.”
He jolts, and I immediately tense up, freeze, wait as his eyes blink open and his gaze moves from my arm up to meet mine.
Then a grin fills his face.
“Morning, boyfriend.”
Like that, warmth floods through my anxiety, and my muscles let go of their tension. “Boyfriend,” I echo.
He leans in, lips meeting mine, and I sigh into the kiss.
I’m okay.
Everything is okay.
Then everything goes from okay to incredible when Kennedy tugs me on top of him, pushes down the waistbands of our underwear, and I rock against him while he begs me to come on him.
So I do. We both cover his solid stomach with our release that he happily rubs into his skin.
“I was tossing up between that and having you sit on my face,” he says.
And my shock must take over my expression because he laughs.
“It’s okay, we’ll do that next time. I want to suffocate in your ass.”
I don’t think it’s possible for my eyes to get wider. Or my body to feel hotter. That’s … a deal I can make.
“Oh, look, I’m making you blush. That’s hot.”
I dip my head. I think it’s less of a blush and more me overheating. I have a boyfriend. And we had morning sex. And now he’s promising more sex.
This whole thing is so strange.
Amazing, but strange.
Almost like I can’t believe that it’s real.
I glance over at him as I climb out of bed and catch the worried look he’s throwing deeper into the mine.
I don’t know what he’s worried about. There’s no way at all for someone to be down there.
It caved in a billion years ago, so other than this shallow entrance, there’s no way to access it. No one is coming from that way.
It’s what could come from outside that we have to watch.
This is why I was worried about him seeing my place though. I don’t want to see it as anything other than my safe space, and I know he doesn’t like it. There’s a reason he slept with his back to the mine last night and had me wrapped around him.
I guess having to snuggle into him isn’t the worst outcome, but I want Kennedy to love this place like I do.
He follows me out of bed and heads to my sink to wash up.
“I need to head home and get some work done, do you—wait. You have hot water?” The look he gives me is like he’s been slapped in the face. “Screw it. I’m showering here before I go.”
Kennedy shoves his underwear off, bare ass and broad back teasing me with the view as he walks over to my shower and turns it on.
I’m hovering in the middle of the room, just staring as he slips under the water and lets out a long groan.
“Not fair,” he says. “I’ve been suffering through cold showers for months now.” Then he squeezes out my soap into his hand and lathers himself up with it.
My soap.
He’s going to smell like me.
Phwoar. Okay. I like that? Apparently so.
I don’t move the entire time he’s washing himself, whistling happily, and completely unaware of how I’m impersonating a statue. He’s filling my home with sound, and all that life radiating from him is addictive.
I don’t want him to leave.
The shower switches off suddenly.
“Ahh … any chance of a towel?”
Towel. Yes. That thing.
I only have two, but I hurry over to my drawer where my spare is and hand it to him.
I watch as he scrubs it roughly over his hair, swipes it over his limbs, and then reaches down to drag it over his cock.
It’s hanging soft and thick over his balls, and I’ve always known dicks are hot, but I never actually processed how much I actually like them.
Especially when the dick in question is attached to Kennedy.
“Am I allowed to put clothes on now?” he asks, bouncing his eyebrows.
I scoff like I don’t care and head out the front, but there’s a good argument to be made for having him here, naked, permanently.
He joins me a few minutes later, and the soft way he kisses me feels like a promise. “Will I see you today?”
There’s still more I could do down there, but house two is fully wired, so they’re not waiting on me for anything.
As much as I’d love to obsessively stick to his side, I won’t.
We might be jumping into boyfriends, but I’ve been listening to his worries about things going too fast, and I’m not going to play into them.
Besides, there are some things I want to look into.
Not today.
“Damn.” He rubs his thumb softly over my top lip. “I would have enjoyed admiring my handiwork.”
His handiwork?
“Your top lip is all red from my mustache. We’ll have to be more careful next time.”
Next time. There’ll be a next time. And if my top lip is all red, I can only imagine what my ass will look like once he’s done with it.
“Will I, uh, see you tomorrow?” he checks. “It’s okay if that’s too soon. I just …”
“Tonight.”
It looks like he’s fighting a smile. “You want me to come back tonight?”
Yes.
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll be here.”
This time, I kiss him before taking a step back. He looks like he doesn’t want to leave, and I could get used to this feeling. This deep need for us to be tied together. For it to feel wrong when we’re apart.
But his feet get unstuck, and he makes his way across the grass and back to the car. I watch as he leaves, knowing tonight can’t come fast enough.
“Ah, well, I have ideas,” Rooney says, rubbing his chin. “Obviously, we could install a tarp door system thing like you have at the front, but that took us a while.” He paces deeper toward the darkness. “Another option is that we fill it in. Like, permanently.”
I stare at the wall of shadow looming over us. It’s not something I even really pay attention to anymore. It just is what it is. I’d planned to put in lights at one point, trailing all the way to where the cave-in happened, but after a while, it didn’t feel important.
A permanent wall means I won’t be able to extend my place if I ever want to, but the trade-off is giving Kennedy some peace of mind, so it’s an easy choice.
I click the pen and jot down “wall” on the paper, then hand it over.
Rooney nods, then reads the next item. “Hot water system? Does yours need to be replaced already?”
I shake my head.
His confusion hangs between us, but I don’t address it.
“Okay, I’ll run this by Wilde. A few of us will help with the wall, but the funds for the hot water system will be something I might have to argue for.”
I’d expect nothing less. I have a feeling that once Wilde knows what I’m planning with that, he’ll magically find the money somewhere.
“Cool, was that everything?” he checks.
When it comes to supplies? Yes.
But as we walk side by side out of my mine, I can’t help the words forming on my tongue.
“Have …”
He pauses, waiting me out.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“In love?” My question has thrown him. “Yeah, of course. I was married too, for a minute.”
He was married? I have so many questions to ask him, but I don’t know where to start or how to make them come out. I’m worried I’ll ask the wrong thing and make him mad because when it comes to Wilde’s End, we have one rule. Don’t ask.
Rooney waves a freckly hand my way. “It’s a long story. But yeah, I assume we were in love.”
“What … what was it like?”
“Being married or in love?”
“In love.”
“It was …” He tucks his hands in his pockets along with my paper.
His mismatched colored eyes squint as he thinks.
“Confusing. It was like there were all these rules I was supposed to follow, but no one told me what they were beforehand. I had obligations. Things people expected of me. Love is … effort. And losing yourself.”
Well, fuck. That’s not too far off what Kennedy hinted at either. How love would consume him until he wasn’t acting like himself. Between that and Wilde’s answer, I’m starting to question why anyone would want to fall in love at all.
“I thought …” What did I think? I have no experience with any of it. “That it’s supposed to be … good.”
“Eh …” He lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “For some people, it might be. Ask Wilde. He seems head over heels for his man.”
I don’t answer, and Rooney tilts his head my way.
“Did that help? With whatever you’re trying to figure out?”
Love is pain and confusion. And losing yourself.
Rooney leaves while I’m still trying to figure out the answer to his question.