Chapter 9 #3
The second she started moving away from him, Keys’ panic shifted from what he was supposed to be doing to the undeniable knowledge that she thought he didn’t want her. Didn’t want her? Was she mad?
Keys had had crushes over the years, little feelings that faded as quickly as the Pennsylvania seasons did. His very being revolved around this woman to the point where one could most definitely argue it was an unhealthy obsession. Not want her? He wanted no one but her!
He bolted upright in bed. “Stop!”
Rose’s legs were now hanging off the side of the bed, and her hands were down by her hips, likely preparing to stand. “I don’t want excuses, Keys. I thought,” she sniffled. “Hell, I don’t know what I thought. I had it in my head that you had feelings for me—”
Keys shifted to his knees, panic replaced with desperation. “Of course you had it in your head that I have feelings for you! I hope like hell that I put them there! I never want you to doubt how madly in love with you I am, Rose!”
Well, spontaneity was one way to go, he supposed.
Rose turned quickly, twisting until she slipped her knees under her too. “You are?”
“If you have to ask, then clearly I haven’t been doing a good job at showing it,” Keys all but grumbled.
“Rose, I’ve been in love with you for years.
Even when we declared we were just friends, I was falling for you.
Telling me your past, introducing me to Oscar, even coming here…
It changed nothing. If anything, it made my feelings for you stronger. ”
She cocked her head to the side, blue eyes studying his intently. “I don’t understand. Then why did you pull away? I was prepared to be with you, to put all my fears aside, but you just…froze. Like I disgusted you, or you didn’t want me to kiss you.”
Shit. Fuck. Keys winced, and took off his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“You know how you said you’ve never been in a real relationship before?
How you fear you’re bad at this because all you know are relationships filled with pain and hurt?
” The center of Keys’ forehead started to itch, but he ignored it.
“You still have more relationship knowledge than I do.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve… I mean, I expected that you slept with the club girls. I didn’t think you dated any of them. Are you saying you’ve never dated anyone?”
Keys couldn’t look at her. He didn’t even want to put his glasses back on so he wasn’t tempted. “I haven’t slept with anyone.”
The admission tasted like ash in his mouth. Why would she even want to be with someone like him, a pathetic loser whom everyone thought of as the kid brother?
Realizing that she hadn’t spoken, either positively or negatively, Keys put his glasses on and looked up at her.
She still knelt there, but her jaw was open and her eyes were squinted.
He couldn’t tell if she looked confused like she was trying to solve a mystery in her head or remember the seventeenth decimal of pi.
“You’re a virgin?”
Fuck, this was so embarrassing. Why hadn’t he just slept with one of the Honeys? At least once? One time wouldn’t have killed him, and it certainly would have kept him from this humiliation!
“Yes,” he begrudgingly admitted.
“I don’t…” Rose shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why?”
Keys blinked, not sure how to take that question. “Why what?”
“You’re not religious. Is there a reason you waited?”
Fuck, this was just getting worse and worse. She thought, what, that he’d made some vow of celibacy or something, and that was why he was still a virgin? Not wanting to risk her rejection, Keys just shook his head. “Look, I’ll go. We can talk about this later.”
Or never if he had his way.
But Rose moved quickly, tackling him to the mattress. Unlike in the kitchen, though, Rose had the strength and surprise on her side to successfully take him down. Straddling his chest, she held herself over him.
“You know, you and I really are a match made in heaven. Give us a computer screen and we can tackle any enemy, but put us face-to-face and neither of us can get over our embarrassment or fears enough to parse two sentences together. Now, tell me why you’re a virgin, so I can tell you that I don’t care and all that matters is that I want to be with you now. ”
Keys blinked up at her. “You do? Even though I just had a panic attack when all we did was kiss?”
Rose nodded. “Keys, I lost my virginity at fifteen because I was trying to fit in at school. And it sucked. I was way too young and far too na?ve to even think about sex, let alone do it. But my parents made such a stigma of sex that it was like drugs and alcohol, so of course, I was going to do it. I figured something was wrong with me. Everyone else raved about sex. So I had to be the one doing it wrong. Stupid, na?ve me, I kept trying. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do.
And as much as I love Oscar, if I had the confidence or the self-awareness to know that I wasn’t ready to have sex at even nineteen, he wouldn’t be here.
I got knocked up because I was scared, alone, and a man almost twice my age convinced me that he was my hero, my white knight who rode in on his grand steed to rescue me.
My experience with sex sucks. I’d take it all back if I could.
Not Oscar, obviously, but the need to prove to anyone else that I was having sex when I should have only been concerned about myself. ”
“I did that,” he confessed. Lifting his hands to her hips, he helped her settle even further into him. “I made my brothers believe that I was sleeping with the Honeys when I wasn’t. I wanted them to think I was having sex.”
Rose lifted her hands off the mattress by his head and laid herself down on top of him. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I was a nineteen-year-old kid. No other member was around my age. Sissy was, obviously, but she was Lucky’s daughter.
Being around her was intimidating enough, let alone even thinking of befriending or trying something with her.
My brothers would arrange for one of the Honeys to be with me each night.
They even gave her the condom like I wasn’t responsible enough to do it myself, and then they would push us off towards my bedroom, laughing like it was all this big joke. ”
“The Honeys never told?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Only one of them ever gave me a hard time about it, and she turned out to be a total bitch anyway. I was able to play it off that she wanted me to do something I didn’t want to do. They never paired me with her again.”
“I’m sorry your brothers put you in that situation. Why didn’t you just tell them you didn’t want to sleep with the Honeys?”
“I was embarrassed. Like you said, there’s a perception about sex.
It’s supposed to be private and intimate, and yet there’s like this spotlight on you.
My brothers are all older than me. I knew they’d been with the Honeys, and the idea of being with them was…
intimidating. What if I sucked at it? I can barely find my toothbrush half the time, how am I supposed to find a clitoris?
! And eventually, it just became something to avoid. ”
“Clitorises?” Rose asked, clearly biting the inside of her lip.
Keys glared up at her playfully. “Ha-ha. No. I meant, sex.”
Thankfully, she was able to contain her laughter. More seriously, Rose inquired, “And you never dated anyone?”
“Never came out from behind my computer screen long enough to find someone.” He shrugged.
“I mean, I thought about it. I even looked into online dating, but at the end of the day, I couldn’t work up the courage.
I don’t know how to talk to women. You’re all so pretty and my tongue never seems to work right when one of you smiles at me. ”
Rose held her face over his. “I’m smiling at you.”
“And you’re the prettiest of them all.”
Her smile widened. “See, you know how to talk to women.”
“I know how to talk to you,” he clarified. “Because I know you. I just can’t seem to stop making a fool of myself around you.”
“Keys, you’re too hard on yourself. I thought you were working on that, learning to stand up for yourself with your brothers and believing how incredible you are.”
He raised a derisive eyebrow. “Really? And what do you call whatever that was out there,” he tipped his chin towards the kitchen, “and freezing on our first kiss?”
Rose shrugged. Her expression was soft, but not mocking as he would have thought it would be. “I call it one hell of a story that we can tell our kids one day.”
Both of Keys’ eyebrows shot up now. “Kids? As in more than one?”
“Someday. When I’m no longer hiding and you’re no longer fish and/or roach hunting, yeah. I don’t want Oscar to get much older. Don’t get me wrong, Poison is my sister and I love her, but the bond that most siblings cherish is missing.”
“Might also have to do with her thinking you’re dead,” he deadpanned.
Rose slapped her hand down on his chest. “You know what I mean. I don’t want there to be a major age gap between them.”
Keys pursed his lips, thinking. “What if we look into kids who are already alive?”
Rose tilted her face in curiosity. “You mean adopt?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “There’s so many unwanted kids in the world, and as much as I’d like to experience fatherhood, I can’t help but think of all the hardships the ol’ ladies have gone through, what you must have gone through with Oscar.
I’m not opposed to more kids, but just thinking that maybe we don’t bring another into this world.
Maybe we give one a home that they don’t currently have. ”
Rose watched him for a heartbeat before smiling.
“I love that.” Leaning over him, she gently pressed her lips to his.
“I didn’t say it before, Keys, but I do want it known: I am falling for you.
I may not be able to say those words yet, but there’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re it for me. Can you just give me a bit more time?”
“Rose, you don’t ever have to say those words to me.
We’re both aware how much actions speak louder than words.
If you’re not comfortable saying the words, then don’t.
Write them on the bathroom mirror, send me a text message, or leave me an Easter egg in some source code.
I don’t need the words to know you feel them. ”
“Thank you. I’ll get there one day, but it’s nice to know the pressure is off to say them. I am sorry I can’t say them as readily as others can or do.”
Keys shook his head. “I’m not. I’d rather they weren’t spoken at all than said prematurely or when you don’t mean them.”
Settling herself under his chin, Rose wrapped her arms around him. Keys shifted his arms to encircle her waist rather than grip her hips. “What a pair we make,” she mused.
“No joke. I am probably the only father in history who’s still a virgin.”
Rose laughed, shaking her head. “We’ll fix that soon enough.”
“Maybe we don’t.”
Rose lifted her head up, frowning down at him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, other than Cage’s poor advice to clean up my scruff,” Keys explained with reproach, “he also talked about how intimacy is more than sex. How we need to work on trusting each other and building our relationship outside the bedroom.”
“He knows about me?” Rose asked, her frown deepening.
“Not specifically, but he knows I’m interested in someone,” Keys clarified.
“While I will never allow wax to touch my skin again, I’m thinking he might not be wrong with that other advice.
What if we take sex off the table? Work on us, strengthen our relationship, learn who we are beyond the computer screens we’ve been hiding behind, and when the time is right, then we can… ” He let his voice trail off.
“Pop your cherry?” Rose offered with a smile.
Snorting, Keys nodded. “Sure.”
“What about kissing?”
Leaning forward, Keys took her lips. While there was a slight hesitation in the beginning, his confidence grew exponentially, and Rose knew she would always remember this as their first real kiss.
When he pulled back, Keys answered her initial question. “Kissing and touching is fine. In fact, it’s encouraged.” He trailed his fingertips along the skin at the small of her back. “But we work on us without the pressure of sex or saying those three pesky little words.”
“And we go roach hunting,” she added.
Keys chuckled. “Absolutely. It’s essential.”
Nodding slowly, Rose said, “I like this. It’s not conventional, but then, what about us is?”
“Personally, I think conventional is overrated. Now, why don’t you get some sleep, and I’ll come by in the morning with breakfast?”
The apartment was fully stocked with all the essentials, including food. But not donuts, and every kid’s heart could be won over with donuts. And maybe a few more LEGO kits.
“Will you stay?” Rose asked softly, like she was afraid of the answer.
Keys watched her closely for a moment. “Are you sure?”
She nodded. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s held me, Keys. I just want to be held, to fall asleep knowing that someone out there cares for me.”
Keys swallowed hard. “Yeah. Yes,” he reassured. “Of course. Why don’t you get back into bed and I’ll use the bathroom real quick? I can leave my shirt on if that makes you more comfortable, but I’d prefer to take my jeans off.”
“Shirt on or off is up to you, and pants off is fine with me.” She slipped off him and back under the covers. As he headed towards the door, she called after him, “Unthank you, Keys.”
He paused in the doorway, smiling back at her. “You’re very unwelcome, Rose.”