Chapter 20
By the time I get back to campus, I’m tired, a weary exhaustion that I feel all the way down to my bones, but I still text Alex to see if he’s awake. Kimiko’s words are in my head, and I can’t stop thinking about the question she asked.
Who do I want in my life?
And why is it that the first person who came to mind when she posed that question was Alex? I know who he becomes, I know it’s a person I don’t like, and I know it’s very possible that heartbreak lies at the end of the road I’m on.
I’m not sure I care.
Does that just come down to teenage hormones? Or is it more?
The Alex I’ve gotten to know isn’t the Alex I left behind, and it’s not fair to judge him against a version of himself that doesn’t exist yet. So the moment he texts me back that he’s awake, I head to his dorm.
He opens the door, his face poised in a smirk, as if he’s readying himself to give me shit for ditching him all evening. Whatever he sees on my face causes the smirk to slide right off.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
I’ve had hours to pull myself together, and I really thought I had succeeded, but it took only one look for him to see straight through me.
He backs up to allow me into his room and shuts the door. Gently, he places a hand on my shoulder and says, “You don’t have to tell me what happened, just tell me if you’re okay.”
I nod, only once. He breathes a sigh of relief and wraps me in a tight embrace.
I had half an hour on the drive from Kimiko’s place to campus to think about what I would say, but now that I’m in front of him, the words spill out with no eloquence.
“What are we doing?”
It’s not that Alex takes particularly long to respond, but he takes long enough for me to note that there is something careful, almost cautious, to the way he carries himself, something that I think might always have been there if I had taken the time to notice.
“Can you clarify what you’re asking?” He drops his arms and adopts a casual stance. The movement feels deliberate, as if he’s already assessed the situation and knows he needs to proceed with caution.
I’m sure that prudence is a great quality in a businessman. The ability to assess situations, to read a room and proceed accordingly. He doesn’t get heated; he doesn’t work himself up with worry. He just calmly presses forward.
A great quality in a businessman—but not what I need right now.
My silence stretches on as I consider. Alex says nothing, but his body tenses. Had I thought his stance casual? I realize now that it’s anything but. As he stares back at me, his face tightens, his lips turn down. That crease between his eyes deepens.
I look down, movement snagging my attention, and just barely catch the way he flexes his hand, as if it’s itching toward a motion he doesn’t dare allow.
“I mean, what are we? What is this thing between us? Is it a relationship? Or are we just friends who enjoy making out?”
Slowly, Alex’s tension eases until there’s a small uptilt to his lips, though his eyes are still confused. Or maybe concerned; I can’t quite tell.
“Do you want this to be a relationship?”
“I asked you first.”
“You asked what we are, not what I want—and I can’t begin to say what we are without knowing what you want us to be.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“With you, Joey, I’m not sure anything’s ever obvious.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you want something from me, you’re going to have to spell it out.”
This is it. A moment that could be a turning point.
I can feel it all around me, the weight of importance to the words I’m about to say, and I wonder if moments this big are always so charged, like you can tangibly feel them, or if some are sneakier, flimsier, and slip right by without anyone ever noticing.
How many moments like this have slipped right past me? And how lucky am I to recognize this moment for what it is as it’s happening?
I open my mouth to say that I’m done taking things slow, to tell him exactly what I want and how I want it. To take charge of the moment.
I chicken out.
I feel the weight of the moment, and I chicken out anyway.
“I don’t know what I want.”
I want to slap myself as soon as the words come out of my mouth. I want to reach out and take them back. I want to erase that specific combination of words from existence, wipe them from my memory, and make it so I can never utter them again.
This was my chance to put myself out there. I open my mouth to do damage control, but even knowing I’ve fucked up, I can’t quite get myself to speak.
“You don’t know what you want,” he repeats flatly.
“I want to know what you want,” I say, even though it’s an easy out.
I should admit that what I just said was wrong and that I know exactly what I want.
But it’s hard to be vulnerable, and besides, I was already forward and sexy and take-charge with a boy once in this second life, and it blew up spectacularly in my face.
I expect this to be the end. I expect a fight or, worse, a retreat. I expect him to drop some emotionally evasive line about keeping things casual or needing time or not being ready. The kind of line that college boys always seem to be so good at. Instead, what I get is—
“I want you to be my girlfriend.”
A sentence that I definitely didn’t expect.
“But if that’s not what you want—” he continues, but I cut him off.
“You want me to be your girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Since when? Why haven’t you asked yet?”
“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to. Which was apparently a valid concern since—”
“I want you to,” I cut in.
“You want me to… what?” he says carefully.
“I want you to ask.”
“So you can say no?” I don’t say anything, and he lets out a deep sigh before continuing.
“Okay. Joey, I—” He pauses, considering his words, and I watch him, rapt.
“I think you’re the best. I spend so much of my time away from you simply looking forward to seeing you again.
But it’s been a while since—I don’t know the right way to go about dating somebody.
I don’t know the timeline for these things.
When can you say, ‘To hell with casually making out, do you want commitment?’ without sounding like an overeager loser?
But I guess I let that moment come and go, so I’m a little late to asking: Will you be my girlfriend? ”
I can’t seem to find the right words, so instead of speaking, I hurl myself at him.
He catches me and picks me up, and I wrap myself around him like a koala.
I press my mouth to his, but I’m smiling so hard, unable to contain it, that the kiss isn’t actually a very good kiss, strictly speaking.
Soon he’s smiling back, and rather than kissing, we’re pressing our smiles together.
I’m sure that if I could see this kiss from an observer’s standpoint, we would look like freaks.
It’s the best kiss I’ve ever had.
“Is that a yes?” he asks, pulling back.
“That’s a hell yes,” I say, then school my smile enough to give him a proper kiss.
He wastes no time deepening it, his tongue running along the seam of my mouth and begging for entry.
Things escalate quickly until we’re both desperate, panting messes, and while this would usually be the point where he puts the brakes on things, he doesn’t seem in danger of doing that anytime soon.
I break from the kiss, just barely, and ask my question into his lips.
“Are we still taking things slow?”
“Fuck taking things slow,” he says, his voice so deep and gravelly, it’s almost a growl. He kisses me again, fingers curling in my hair. He tugs until I groan, and I follow suit, both of us delighting in every sound we can pull from the other.
Minutes pass before I feel him start to walk, never once breaking the kiss. He backs us up until I feel his bed behind me, then gently lays me down on it and crawls on top. He freezes. “Unless you still want to take things slow?”
“No way,” I say, then pull his mouth back down to mine.
We don’t get much further before I realize it’s so tiny. The bed, I mean. Not his—that, I know from experience, is a great size. The bed, however—
It’s a tiny fucking bed. I mean, sure, it’s an extra-long twin, but it’s still a twin.
I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve had sex in a twin bed, and all of them were over a decade ago.
And don’t even think about partner-induced orgasms, because the sex I was having at that point in my life was not good enough for me to actually come.
Every orgasm I ever had in a twin bed was self-elicited.
“What are you thinking about?” Alex asks, pulling back to look at me with concern.
I struggle to hold back my laugh.
“This is the tiniest bed in the world.”
“Mmm,” he says, sliding down to kiss my jaw. “We might have to get creative, then.”
Alex kisses a path across my jaw and down my neck, pausing only to look up at me and see if it’s okay for him to lift my shirt over my head. I nod, and before I know it, I’ve been divested of not only my shirt but my bra and pants as well.
It’s only as he’s sucking my nipple into his mouth, his hand inching up toward the edge of my underwear, that I remember: This is Alex.
The first time we slept together was probably the best sex of my life.
There’s no need for me to wonder if he’s going to get me off or not, because he’s the kind of guy who cares about his partner’s pleasure first and foremost.
Though, if the shaking of his fingers as he inches my underwear aside is anything to go by, he’s more nervous this time around.
The first time—the time that I should really stop thinking about, because it officially never happened, and because thinking about it is only pulling me out of this time—we had come together quickly, desperately.
It had been more like two cars crashing into each other than anything.
Oh, sure, we’d done it again later in the night, slower, lazier.
This is neither quick and desperate nor lazy.
Alex takes his time, seeming determined to kiss every inch of me.
Every moment that passes, every kiss, fans the flames of anticipation inside me. He kisses his way across my breasts and down my stomach, his shaking fingers becoming a lot more steady when they finally meet their target, and he starts to rub me in slow, confident circles.
He checks on me at every point, asking if it’s okay when he lowers his fingers to penetrate me, then again before he brings his mouth down to focus on the spot his fingers just vacated.
And even though I am a woman who prioritizes my pleasure as much as a man’s, I murmur, “You don’t have to.”
He freezes, looking up at me from his spot between my legs.
His brow furrowed, and his fingers still inside me, paused mid-motion but deep enough that I struggle to think about anything else, he asks, “Do you not want me to?”
“No, I do—if—if you want to,” I gasp out, feeling myself flush in embarrassment. Why did I say that? Of course he doesn’t have to. But I wanted to make sure, and now I’m worried I’ve ruined it.
I watch as understanding dawns on his face; a smirk that shouldn’t be so damn alluring tugs at his lips and immediately assures me that I have, in fact, ruined nothing.
“Jo, I have been thinking about how pretty your pussy would be for months, and now that it’s in front of me, the reality better than anything I could have dreamed, I want nothing more than to lavish it with the attention it deserves. Now, may I do that?”
Jo. A nickname he’s called me only once before, also when we had sex. And although my feelings are all jumbled up right now, I know that I like it. I like that, regardless of our history, he has a nickname for me that he reserves for intimate occasions.
It takes a moment for the rest of his words to register, and when they do, my face heats for an entirely different reason.
I manage a shaky nod, but he sternly tells me, “Be a good girl and use your words.”
If I didn’t feel so hot, I might laugh at the sudden change in tone, but something about his voice is really doing it for me.
“Yes,” I say with a gulp.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, you may…” I let my words trail off, but he continues to stare at me expectantly.
“Yes, I may… what? Do this?” Slowly, achingly slowly, he resumes moving two fingers in and out of me, all the while keeping his eyes on mine, knowing exactly what he’s doing.
“Alex,” I gasp.
“Yes, Jo?”
Goddamn it, he’s going to make me say it. I finally command, “Lick me.”
Infuriating asshole that he is, he lowers his head and does exactly that—licks me, once, right on the spot that sends a jolt of sensation through my body, so strong that I nearly knee him.
“Anything else?” he asks, a challenge in his voice, then leans forward to lick me again.
I moan and command him to suck, and he does with enthusiasm, letting out a groan as he suctions his mouth to that bundle of nerves with such aching precision that I nearly scream in relief; he swirls his tongue in a way that has me seeing stars.
Following my directions—and, really, he doesn’t need many more once he’s done purposely being difficult—he manages to home in on every trigger point, every sensitive spot, working me up to a quaking mess and sending me over the edge in what feels like record time.
After I’ve caught my breath, as he’s rolling on a condom and lining himself up, I breathlessly ask, “How the hell are you so good at that?”
He smiles an enigmatic smile, and it’s only belatedly that I realize what an awkward question that was.
How is he so good at that? How is anyone good at it? Practice—duh.
Luckily, he spares us the awkward conversation and kisses me deeply, circling his fingers around my entrance until I feel the build to my next orgasm starting.
“You feel so—ah—so fucking amazing,” he says as he finally slides into me slowly, pausing midway to let me adjust to the feel of him. “I want to do this forever. Nothing but this.”
I let out a laugh that turns into a gasp when he pulls out and thrusts back in. “Keep it up, I just might let you.”
I don’t know what response I expect to that, but a smile so blindingly bright and sincere that it has my head spinning is certainly not it.
It’s there for only a second before he lowers his head to plant kisses along my jaw, murmuring comments to me as he continues to slide in and out.
“You’re fucking perfect,” and “I can’t believe I got so lucky,” and “How is this real?”
It feels like he’s voicing the same questions that are in my head. How am I lucky enough to be here? How is this real? How is he real? It’s completely perfect and also too much.
I know that here and now, in this room, we are in a bubble, and the moment I step outside, reality will come rushing back to me.
Nothing is actually perfect right now. Things are as messy as they have ever been.
Messier, even. But with him, all that fades away, and all I feel is happy.
So fucking happy that it doesn’t seem possible.
Do I even deserve to be this happy?