Chapter 13 Pickle #2
He kissed me, and the rest of the world stopped mattering.
It was different from before.
Every other time Adrian had kissed me, there'd been a question in it. Is this okay? How far does this go?
This kiss didn't ask questions. It answered them.
He cupped my face in his hands, and he kissed me like he'd been thinking about it for five days.
I moaned softly against his mouth—embarrassing, needy—and he swallowed it. Pulled me closer. His fingers raked into my hair, gripped, and I felt the tug all the way down my spine.
"Bed," I managed. "Bed is—that direction—probably—"
"Probably?"
"You're doing things with your hands that make blood leave my brain. I can't be held responsible for spatial awareness."
Adrian laughed against my throat. The vibration shivered through me.
We were about four steps in when my heel caught on my gear bag.
I went down—or would have, arms pinwheeling—except Adrian's arm shot out and caught me around the waist. He yanked me upright and against his chest in one motion. Smooth. Efficient. Almost like dancing.
"Graceful," he murmured.
"That bag is a hazard."
He catches me, I thought. Every time.
We made it to the bedroom without further incident—a minor miracle—and then his hands were under my shirt, and the thinking part of my brain started to quiet down.
Adrian undressed me like he was unwrapping something fragile.
Not careful exactly—there was urgency in it, hunger in the way his fingers worked—but deliberate.
"You're staring," I said when my shirt hit the floor.
"I'm looking."
"There's a difference?"
"With you? Yes."
His palm flattened against my chest. My heartbeat slammed against his hand.
"Your heart's racing," he observed.
"Near-death experience with a hockey bag. Adrenaline."
"Mmm." He trailed kisses down the side of my neck while I rolled my head back.
I continued to ramble about my collision with the hockey bag. "Nothing to do with feelings or—" His hand slid inside the back of my jeans, and I lost the thread entirely. "—any—fuck—"
Adrian laughed—low, warm, right against my ear. "You've never been normal about anything in your life."
"Rude. Accurate, but rude."
He kissed me again, and I stopped trying to form words.
We made it onto the bed properly—a minor logistical miracle—and then Adrian was over me, between my legs, his mouth tracing a path down my throat that made my spine arch off the mattress.
He took his time with it. Collarbone. Sternum.
The soft skin below my ribs, where I was embarrassingly ticklish, except when he touched it, I didn't laugh, I forgot how to breathe.
"You're very—" I started.
"Mm?"
"Thorough. You're very thorough. It's—" His tongue touched my hip bone, and my brain shorted out. "—it's a thing. That you're doing. A good thing."
"You're still talking," he observed against my skin.
"I'm always talking. It's a design flaw. You should just ignore—oh!"
He didn't ignore me. He paid attention like there was going to be a test later. When I made a sound, he repeated whatever caused it. When I tensed, he was gentler. When I grabbed his hair and pulled, he groaned in a way that made me want to do it again.
By the time he reached for the nightstand—and I thanked past-Pickle for being optimistic enough to stock it—I was already wrecked. Shaking with it. Making sounds I'd normally be embarrassed about, except Adrian was looking at me like they were exactly what he wanted to hear.
"Okay?" he asked, slick fingers pressing where I needed them.
"If you stop, I will literally die. That's not hyperbole. I will expire. You'll have to explain to Coach why I missed practice—"
He pressed deeper, and my sentence ended in a noise that wasn't a word.
"Good?" His voice was rougher, frayed at the edges.
"Yes. More. I can take—yes, like that, just—"
He worked me open, taking all the time in the world.
"Adrian." I didn't care that I was begging. "Please."
He kissed me—deep and filthy, swallowing whatever sound I made next—and then finally, he lined us up, pressing in, and—
"Fuck."
"Yeah," he breathed against my mouth. "Yeah."
He moved slowly at first. Deliberate. Watching my face like he was registering every reaction and every hitch in my breath. I'd never been with someone who looked at me like that during sex—seeing me as the main event, not merely a participant.
"You can—" I started, and he shifted his angle, and the rest of the sentence dissolved into random noises.
"I can what?" he asked, and the bastard was smiling.
"Shut up."
"You were saying something."
"I was trying to say—" He did it again, that exact angle, that exact depth, and I stopped trying to say anything at all.
The sounds he made undid me almost as much as the rest of it. Quiet, controlled, like he was trying to hold onto himself but failed little by little. He tried to swallow a groan when I arched up into him. He repeated my name—not Pickle but Noah, rough and low.
Nobody called me Noah. I'd almost forgotten it was my name.
Still, in the middle of it—even with Adrian inside me, taking me apart like he had all night and intended to use every minute—my brain flickered.
That look on his face when you asked if there was more.
"Noah."
I blinked. Adrian's face above me—flushed, pupils dilated.
"You're thinking," he said.
"I'm always thinking. My brain is a hostile work environment."
"What are you thinking about?"
"You. This. How I—"
I stopped.
Don't say it. It's too soon.
Adrian slowed his thrusts.
He brushed my cheekbone with his thumb. "Where'd you go?"
I looked at him.
"I'm here," I said. "Right here."
"Good." He kissed me—slow and thorough. "Stay with me."
"I'm not going anywhere."
He started moving again, deeper. "Neither am I."
The words hit something in my chest that cracked open and wouldn't close.
Then, my brain went white, all thoughts gone—and the only word left was his name—Adrian.
He followed me over the edge, just seconds behind, burying his face against my throat, his whole body shuddering as he came. I held onto him through it—hands on his back, feeling the muscles tense and release.
Neither of us moved. We panted for breath, existing in the wreckage of what we'd done to each other.
Eventually, Adrian shifted, pulling out carefully. He dealt with the condom. Then he was back, collapsing onto the mattress beside me, one arm draped across my stomach.
My brain was very broken. Pleasantly destroyed. The best kind of destruction.
After, I lay there trying to remember how my lungs worked.
"Holy shit," I managed.
Adrian laughed. "Yeah."
"I can't feel my legs. Again. This is becoming a pattern."
"You have very fragile legs."
"My legs are weapons." I tried to move them. They didn't cooperate. "My legs have betrayed me."
Adrian rolled onto his side and pulled me against him.
I tucked myself into the space between his body and the bed like I'd been designed to fit there. His arm wrapped around my waist, and his chin rested on top of my head.
Safe. I felt safe.
"I talk too much after sex," I said. "You can tell me to shut up."
"I like it when you talk."
"Give it twenty minutes. I'll start explaining why octopuses have three hearts, and you'll regret that comment."
"Octopuses have three hearts?"
"Yes! It's wildly excessive. One heart causes me enough problems. I wonder what happens if they disagree about who to love."
"Pickle."
I looked up at him and relaxed. I wasn't Noah anymore.
Adrian's face was soft, serious, and a little bit scared.
"I'm not going to tell you to be less," he said quietly. "The rambling. The chaos. The way your brain never stops. I don't want you to shrink yourself for me."
I bit my lip.
"Most people do," I whispered. "Want me to be less. Not in a mean way, just—less loud. Less much."
"I know."
"I've tried. Being less and holding it back. It never works. They still leave anyway."
"Pickle, I don't want to fix you. You're not broken, and I like you—exactly as you are, random octopus facts and everything."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
No one had ever said that to me before—particularly not in the dark with their body wrapped around mine.
"You're quiet," Adrian said. "That's not usually a Pickle thing."
"I'm processing you."
His arm tightened around me, and my eyes closed.
This could be everything, I thought.
For one perfect moment, I didn't worry it would shatter.
Sleep began to circle, but it hadn't landed yet.
I traced patterns on Adrian's chest.
"What are you drawing?"
"A masterpiece. Very avant-garde."
His laugh rumbled under my fingertips.
I tried to name what I felt and ran through the usual suspects.
It wasn't excitement. I was too steady. Not lust either. We'd just dealt with that.
The word I was avoiding floated into view—love.
Or something close enough that the distinction didn't matter. I pressed my palm flat against Adrian's chest to feel his heart beating.
He held me like something precious.
"Adrian?"
"Hmm?"
"You okay?"
"I'm good." He pushed my hair back off my forehead. "I'm just thinking about how I don't want to mess this up."
I propped myself up on one elbow. "You're not going to mess this up."
"You don't know that."
"I know plenty of things. I know octopuses have three hearts. I know you like your coffee black because you're a psychopath. I know you came to the parking lot without your camera to meet me. I don't think you're the kind of person who messes up things that matter."
"You matter," he said. "In case that wasn't clear."
"I'm getting that impression."
"Good." He pulled me back down against his chest and wrapped both arms around me.
His grip stayed firm. His fingertips pressed into my back. His body still held some tension, like he was bracing against something I couldn't see.
I thought about the phone he kept checking. The shadows behind his smile. And now this—how he held on, afraid to let go.
Tomorrow. I'd push tomorrow.
For now, I let Adrian hold me, and I held him back just as tightly.
Whatever you're not telling me, I thought, we can figure it out. Just stay.
Outside, Thunder Bay hummed its midnight hum. The streetlamp flickered once, then held steady.
I fell asleep in Adrian's arms, dreaming of breakaways and bar-down goals and a version of the future where the other shoe never dropped.