25. Twenty-five
Twenty-five
Bo is in my house and using up all the oxygen. My breathing is so shallow standing in my living room facing him, I’m pretty sure air is just coming into my nose and shooting back out with no real purpose. George Strait pants next to me before lying down on his dog bed and it’s oddly comforting. Like Bo’s effect is universal.
“So,” I say between faux breaths, “now that I’ve invited you here, I can give you the tour?” I don’t think I meant to ask as much as offer, but the flexion of my voice makes it a question so I go with it.
“Lead the way,” he says easily, crouching down to pet the dog who is now sprawled out on a big pillow on the floor.
“So, you can see, we are standing in the living room, and I have a Greg Hawkins original coffee table,” I say with mock formality, relaxing just a little. My style is clean and modern—cream-colored walls, neutral tones everywhere, and a couple house plants. As someone who perpetually errs on the side of anxious, I designed the space with my nervous system in mind. The table my dad made for me is a honey-stained wood and sits asymmetrically next to my tan couch. Other than the recent addition of my colorful bowls and mugs, it’s the most unique thing in my house.
For some reason, as I watch him look around, I become hyperaware that while his house has pictures hanging on the walls, mine are bare. Other than one photo of my dad and I from my college graduation that sits on a shelf, nothing. Someone walking in here might think it’s a short-term rental property more than my home of nearly a decade.
We move to the attached kitchen, equally tidy, neutrally colored, and as obviously void of humanity as the living room. White cabinets, white backsplash, butcher block counters, essential oil diffuser puffing the scent of vanilla into the air. The only pops of color are a vase Veda gave me that has flowers in it and my calendar wall that has sticky notes and highlighted dates.
Bo instantly goes to the calendar, giving me a look of, Seriously?
I snort, standing across the room from him. “Guess you didn’t see this last time. Did you expect anything different?”
He vibrates with a laugh. “This looks like a command center for an entire country.”
“Does not,” I argue, stepping next to him and admiring my own organization. “Look.” I point to a list. “You can see what I’m eating for dinner three weeks from now and what class I’ll be taking at the gym. Isn’t that satisfying? ”
He blinks with disbelief at me before looking back at the calendar and points to a date at the end of September where I’ve written Forever Fun Clay School . “What’s this?”
“Gran offered to teach the other oldies a clay lesson,” I say with a smile.
He laughs on an exhale, then his tone turns serious. “How does she seem?”
A pit forms in my stomach with the question. I can’t lie to him, but I also can’t break Veda’s word. “Hmm…” I pause, noticing my hands are shaking and gluing them to my hips, clearing my throat before I add, “Like she’s almost eighty and annoyed by my food.”
He nods silently.
“Why do you ask?”
He shrugs. “Just wondering. She is almost eighty—I worry.” His gaze finds mine. “I’m glad she has you there. She loves you.”
Guilt bleeds into every vein with what he says, and I blink my eyes away. I tell myself I’m not lying, but it feels like I am. I don’t even know what’s wrong with Veda, so really, I’m not actually keeping anything from him. Just speculations. Concerns. A feeling I can’t name. Whatever she’s hiding from me, I’m also hiding from him. The second she told me not to tell Bo, my bed was made. Not just ethically, but legally, I can’t tell him whatever she shares.
“If Veda loves me, I’d hate to see how she’d yell at me if she didn’t like me,” I say, attempting to pull myself from my thoughts.
He chuckles softly, fingers interlacing with mine as he takes a step. “This calendar is riveting, but show me the rest of your house. ”
Happy for the change of subject, I lead the way.
There are only three other rooms in my house: a hall bathroom, a guest bedroom, and the master bedroom. The first two are easy, but when I open the door to my bedroom, it’s a flirt with disaster. A danger zone. Four walls that suck the moisture from my mouth.
He didn’t show me his bedroom, so I have no idea what to show him of mine.
“So this is my bedroom,” I say, shaky, stalled out at the doorway and not daring to step inside.
He drops my hand and walks in without me. Like everything else, it’s in shades of cream and tan with a plant in the corner. Instead of a bright lamp, there’s a soft red-orange glow of two salt lamps.
Seeing him next to my bed makes me want to march over to him, shove his broad shoulders, and watch him drop onto my mattress. Instead, I stay in the doorway, gripping the doorframe as though I physically need to keep myself from moving.
His fingertips graze across my blanket; both my throat and thighs pinch shut.
“What’s this?” he asks, lifting a book off my nightstand.
My cheeks heat instantly. Mabel’s lumberjack book.
This is enough to make me move. Fast.
I rush over to him and reach for it. “It’s Mabel’s!” I shout, trying to snatch it out of his hand. He pinches his fingers around it, amused look on his face as he waves it over my head. “Bo, I’m serious. It’s nothing—”
“If it’s nothing, why does it matter if I look?” he teases.
My face is hot—my entire body is hot—I think I might die from overheating. He can’t look in there. I’m frustrated and flustered, trying to grab it from him while he reaches it higher, just out of my reach.
“Bo!” I shout, jumping with a swipe of my arm through the air only to bounce off his broadness empty-handed.
Asshole.
“Birdie,” he coos, twisting me until he has me pinned to his side with one arm as he holds the book in his other. “ Wood of Love ?” he asks, reading the title, clicking a sound with his tongue as I writhe under his arm until I break free with a grunt.
“Fine!” I bite out. “Just get this over with so I can go die.” I sit on the bed, cross my arms, and wait for death.
“I’m going to read it to you,” he says, smug smile on his lips.
My voice comes out something between a groan, a yell, and a whimper. “Bo! No!”
“Ah yes,” he says, dropping onto the bed, laying back with one arm bent behind his head, the other holding the book, as his ankles cross. “I see our main character is named Aaron.” His eyes dramatically look somewhere in the distance, repeating, “ Aaron ,” in a breathy voice.
“I hate you.” I drop my face to my hands as he thumbs through the pages.
“Let’s find the good stu—” He pauses, looking over the top of the book toward me. “I see you’ve highlighted your favorite passages here, Birdie.” He whistles, raising his eyebrows. “I’m shocked that, ‘ naked, his legs were like oak trees, but what was between them was a sequoia’ didn’t make your highlight standards.” He continues, trying to suppress a smile as I beg him to stop. “Ahh! There are quite a lot of things that Aaron does that y—” He stops.
Shit.
I can’t have sex with Bo again, I know that, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought about it. A lot.
His weight shifts the bed next to me—he’s sitting up. I can’t look at him. Even if he has some kind of feelings for me like Libby says, other than fourteen-year-old girls, who really does this? Perverts, that’s who!
“Birdie.” The throaty way he says my name—the familiar scrape of his beard against my cheek, rustiness of his voice, and warmth of his breath—makes me physically ache. Like a cat’s tongue being dragged all over me inside and out. “Tell me.”
I shake my head quickly.
“Please,” he begs.
I turn my head slightly until my mouth is at his ear.
My trembling, “Fine,” is a sultry sound I don’t recognize.
“I highlight the…stuff…”
Another shallow breath.
“…and I changed Aaron’s name to Bo…”
I squeeze my eyes shut, barely getting air in my lungs, then—quietly—add, “Because I imagine it’s you.”
My head gets fuzzy, like I might be about to slip into a coma. I’m so lightheaded, and he’s so still, it’s unbearable. I’ve freaked him out—of course I did. What kind of degenerate do I have to be to even do that? Even worse, as mortified as I am at the confession, I’m extremely turned on. Like something deep inside my body is thrilled that he knows.
Because I’m a pervert.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just, you know, I don’t really have sex, and then with you—” I turn my head more so I can apologize to his face. I may be depraved, but I’m not a coward. His eyes are dark, the low light of the room making him glow. “I know it’s weird, and—and—and,” I stutter, heat incinerating my body with every word, “—and creepy or gross or—”
He cuts me off with a kiss. Fast. By the time his tongue finds mine, he’s pulling away.
“Birdie,” he says, so close I can feel his breath on my skin, “if I had my way, I’d be ripping your clothes off right now and fucking you until you couldn’t walk for a month. Weird is the last word I would use to describe how I feel about you thinking of me when you touch yourself.”
Fire zips from the back of my eyes to the deepest part of my belly and explodes with a throb. I have never— ever —had anyone say anything like that to me. Ever .
“I want to read this to you.” He pauses, swallows—slow and audibly—and I wonder if he feels the same thickness in his throat as I do in mine. “And I want you to show me what you do.”
No.
NO!
I cannot do that. I won’t.
“Bo, I don’t think…” My voice trails off as he reaches into his pocket, pulling out another sticky note.
He hands it to me. I read it. Do something because it feels good.
I look at him, my body seized with panic.
I take a shaky inhale.
Then.
“Okay.”