Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN_
DECAF
Even with Haz’s clothes back on, the urge to constantly touch him doesn’t go away. I’m beginning to think it never will. Which will be difficult to squash down when Scout gets back.
So while we still have a few minutes to spare, I pull him down on top of me, ignoring the pain in my gut from what we just did and his full weight on me.
I’m not going to let it show, though, because he will try to get away, and he feels way too good like this.
His cheek on mine, his breath on my neck, lying chest-to-chest, and his hand on my waist.
“You think you’re hiding how painful this is, but that doesn’t really work when I can feel the tension in your jaw.” He lifts his head and slides off me, rolling onto his side and nearly falling off the damn tiny-ass bed.
I grab hold of his waist to keep him up, only causing more pain to shoot through my body. The hiss that escapes is undeniable.
“The more you hurt yourself like this, the longer we’ll be here.”
I’m starting to forget why that’s a bad thing. Oh, right. Government wanting to hunt us down and assassinate us. No big deal.
Reluctantly, I let go, and Haz gets his footing under him so he can stand again, but as he stares down at me, a worry line forms in his forehead. He’s too young and too pretty to have worry lines. I want to take them all away for him.
“What is it?”
“You feeling okay? You look kind of pale.” He does the annoying thing Scout does where he checks my temperature with the back of his hand.
“I’m fine. I’m still getting used to … physical activity, and my body is broken right now.”
“Okay. No more physical activity, then. Not until you’re completely healed.”
I throw my head back on my pillow in defeat. “Someone should put me back into a coma until that happens, then, because I can’t be around you and not touch you.”
There’s a silent beat, a moment where he looks stunned.
It’s probably going to take a while for him to get used to the shit I should keep inside.
But once he gets over his surprise, one side of his lips curves up, and he leans over me and kisses me softly on my lips.
“You can touch. We just can’t be … physical. ”
I hate him.
I also hate that if the roles were reversed, I would be saying the exact same thing.
Now that I’ve opened those floodgates, I’m drowning in the need I have to be close to him.
But as he takes a seat on the armchair next to my bed, he says the one thing that turns the water icy cold. “What do you think my dad would say about this? About us?”
I don’t even want to think about it. “Other than I’m an old perv?”
“Hey. You’re not a perv.”
“Asshole.”
“You’re the one who said you were old.”
“You didn’t have to agree with me!”
“I cannot tell a lie.”
“He says, lying,” I say.
“But seriously. Would my dad have supported this?”
I rub my jaw. “I wish I knew. Or … maybe I don’t.”
“You don’t think he’d want his best friend and his grown-ass son to be happy?”
“No, I do. But happy together? I can’t be sure on that. I was supposed to help raise you. Guide you. I broke my promise to him, and then you grew up, and now we’re … If I were him, I’d hate me.”
“We’re bonded by our loss. With you, I get a piece of my dad.”
“And I get part of Jesse back.” My Jesse. My rock.
Is it selfish of me that I get to have this with Haz? No fucking question.
Am I going to take it all back? That’s not even possible anymore.
Every time Haz enters a room, my gaze follows his every move.
I can’t even help it. My eyes do it on reflex.
My hands want to roam all over him too. But now that we’re stocked up on groceries and the cabin has been secure for over a week now, Scout never leaves anymore.
He does his perimeter checks, but they take ten minutes.
Nowhere near enough time to get my fill of Haz. Of his mouth. His body.
I’ve been thinking more about what he asked. About his dad. If Jesse would be happy with what we’re doing. While I’m still adamant he would most likely be disappointed and possibly grossed out, Jesse was the type of guy to forgive and forget. If he saw Haz truly happy, then he could move past it.
All he ever wanted since the moment he found out he was going to be a dad was to give his child the best life he could.
If I can accomplish that, keep Haz warm, safe, and cared for, maybe when I get to the afterlife, I’ll be greeted with one of Jesse’s hugs and not a punch to the jaw. If there is an afterlife.
Fuck, I hope there is because I want the chance to explain myself to him. Ask him for forgiveness for … well, everything.
Am I the worst best friend ever?
“What are you thinking about?” Haz’s voice breaks through my stupor.
“Huh?”
“You look deep in thought.”
I glance around and notice we’re alone. I don’t know when that happened. Last thing I remember was being here in bed, bored out of my brain, and Scout telling me to stop complaining and get my steps in if I have nothing to do. “Where’d Scout go?”
“Another perimeter check. He wasn’t subtle about leaving, so again, I ask, what are you thinking about?”
I sit up, slowly turning so I’m facing him with my legs hanging off the side. “The usual. Guilt and turmoil over the many mistakes I’ve made in my life.”
“Are … are you saying I’m a mistake?”
Oh, shit. “No. No, not at all.” I hold my hand out for him to come to me.
Pain is still a huge factor in my recovery, so it’s easier for him to come to me.
It’s debilitating, but I really want to get physical with Haz again.
Maybe I should start having the full dose of pain meds so we can.
Only thing I’d have to deal with then is the nightmares coming back.
Hmm, sex and nightmares or no sex. This decision shouldn’t be as difficult as it is. If it was sex in general? Easy decision. Give it up all day, every day. Sex with Haz? A lot harder to choose.
He finally comes over to me, reluctantly, head down. I’m still sitting on the edge of my bed, though, so when he’s close, he’s looking directly in my eyes.
“I was thinking that even if your dad would be angry in the beginning, because I left him, left you, made all of the mistakes I shouldn’t have, I’d like to think he’d forgive me if he saw how happy I could make you.
How happy I will make you. I’ve gone through my entire adulthood with no real purpose outside of Mike Bravo.
With you here … with all of this … saving your life, being with you …
” I squeeze his hand. “Maybe this was supposed to be my purpose all along.”
He places his free hand on my shoulder and smiles down at me. “And I suppose if you hadn’t walked away when my mother asked you to, none of this would be happening now.”
“No way. I might still feel weird about you being Jesse’s son, but if I had helped raise you from when you were a child?” I screw up my face. “Nope, no, hell no.”
“Agreed. So maybe abandoning me wasn’t the wrong choice after all.”
I wouldn’t go that far, but he might have a point. “Or instead of having this fucked-up attraction to one another, we’d be like family, and there wouldn’t have been any animosity to begin with.”
It’s times like this that my whole view of the world, what I think is fact and unchangeable, turns on its head.
“We could sit here for years and talk about all the what-ifs of the world. It doesn’t matter and won’t change who we are today.”
How is someone twenty years younger than me so much more emotionally mature?
“And who are we today?” I ask.
“I’m someone really pissed off with myself because I made a stupid no-touching rule.”
Now he sounds his age. Though I hate that fucking rule too. “You know … You said we can touch. We just can’t get physical.”
“Super sweet you think I could touch you and not turn it into something physical.”
He’s got me there. I’m only touching his hand, and it’s taking all my strength not to pull him down on top of me.
Haz drops his hand from mine. “You need to hurry up and be strong enough to keep up with me.”
“Even at my fittest, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to keep up with you. You have youth on your side.”
“You’ve had twice the lifetime experience. That more than makes up for … stamina.”
I close my eyes and let out a shuddery breath. “Please don’t say words like stamina. It puts images in my head that I don’t want to see until I’m able to act on them.”
This is going to be the longest few weeks of my fucking life.