"Because…" He tapped his fingers against his hip, forcing my gaze back to his boxers. Either he liked the attention or he had no idea what was happening down there. "Because I couldn't sleep. My shoulder hurts and—and I don't know. Maybe I'm still on Mountain Time."
"You don't seem like the kind of person who lets pesky things such as time zones interfere with your life," I replied.
Annoyance splashed over him like a spilled bowl of soup. "What kind of person is that?"
"There's no reason to take offense, Ashville." I stood, straightening my tank top straps in the process, and headed into the kitchen. I returned with his prescription painkiller and a glass of water. "We both know you like things a certain way. Nothing wrong with that or the fact your body does recognize when it's in a different environment, even if you wished it didn't. The fact is, you need what you need."
He tapped his fingers on that hip like he was sending a very important telegraph. Tapped for the length of a dog food commercial. Then he accepted the pill and water, gulped them down, and said, "Right now, I need you to clarify what you're saying to me."
I ran my tongue over my top lip and glanced at the television before settling back into my corner of the sofa. Most of the time, there wasn't a reason for my sleeplessness. I never called it insomnia because I did sleep for a couple of hours each night, once I'd chilled out enough to get there. But I couldn't sleep tonight because I was overwhelmed the way a fountain gushed and billowed when a bottle of bubble bath found its way into the water. Everything was so much.
But somehow, Ash—the human spreadsheet who couldn't stop bringing my attention to his standard deviation—wasn't part of that overwhelm. Not really. The push and pull between us didn't send my mind whirling in an up-all-night way but I couldn't ignore the feelings he stirred in me. They were dangerously close to becoming the kind of feelings that grew roots and sprouted limbs. And they demanded I acknowledge them.
"Zelda. Explain it to me," he said, dropping a knee onto the sofa. "Please. I don't want to misunderstand. Explain it, love."
When I'd decided to leave Colorado, I knew the summer would involve soul-searching. Some effort devoted to finding myself and deciding how that person wanted to live her life. Men and sex weren't part of the plan.
If someone had asked me that morning, before boarding the flight to Boston, whether I'd beckon a man toward me so we could watch sitcoms at three in the morning while dressed in nothing more than our underwear, I would've laughed.
I would've argued it was time for me to prioritize my needs—hell, recognize the existence of those needs!—and inviting a man to nestle between my legs and rest his head on my belly wasn't on the path to self-actualization. It wasn't the way to figuring out this new chapter of my life and putting the past behind me.
I would've insisted I was finished being a vessel for others, a stepping-stone to help them achieve their dreams while mine went unfulfilled.
I would've said I needed to do this outrageously selfish thing and I had to do italone.
But here I was, a handful of days and thousands of miles removed from Colorado, with Ash's body pressed against mine as another episode ofParks and Recstarted. It was the one where a guy handcuffed himself to Leslie's office radiator over theTwilightbooks. A solid episode.
"Is this all right?" he asked, his cheek flat on my torso and his arm around my waist. "Are you comfortable?"
I'd expected the summer to be difficult. Listening to and validating one's needs wasn't like getting bangs. It took months, maybe even years, of unlearning destructive, harmful habits. You didn't wake up in the morning, decide to give a shit about yourself, and then live that way by lunchtime.
But then Ash Santillian snuggled me on a sofa in the middle of the night, his cock harder than ever on my leg, and I discovered it could be that simple. At least when my needs sat on the same level as his, it could plant those seeds.
"This is good," I replied, sweeping my hand down his back. "I'm good."
I was asleep before the end of the episode.
* * *
When sunlight swallowedup Ash's living room, I woke and found us wrapped together, legs twined, our arms locked around each other. None of this should've been comfortable enough to allow for sleep. His hand was under my shirt, steady between my shoulder blades as his breath came in even puffs against my neck. Mine sat at the small of his back, my fingertips edged beneath the band of his boxers. I didn't remember consciously choosing to take my touch into that territory but then again, I didn't remember howanyof this happened.
I knew the facts of the matter and I knew the logistics that brought me and Ash here, stripped down to nearly nothing and snuggled like lovers while his hips lazily bucked against mine in sleep but I didn't know how this had become my new world. I didn't know how I'd abandoned all the weight of the past months and years seemingly overnight and I didn't know how the atoms inside me combined to shed the skin of lifetimes past and replace it with fresh newness and a keening desire to be held bythis man alone. I didn't know the sequence of words and moments and touches that brought us to this. For as much as I wanted to excavate and study each of those incidents, that required stepping away and examining this from a distance. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want this to end.
If I could stay right here, just like this, I could avoid all the reality bound to catch up with me. I could pretend Ash was clinging and rutting because he wanted me in all of my randomness, my me-ishness, rather than desperately needing his affection tank refilled. I could allow myself to believe I hadn't blown up my life and I wasn't trying to outrun the blast.
Ash shifted, stretched. His body was so—oof—taut against mine. "You hum when you think." His words rumbled against my neck, rough and sleepy. "It's really cute."
I glanced down at him but his eyes were still shut. I snatched my hand back from the band of his boxers. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"I'm not complaining." He fumbled for my hand and when he found it, returned it to his lower back. "Since we're talking, would it be all right if I asked you a personal question?"
I studied the thick stubble on his jaw and above his upper lip as I considered this. "I hate to break it to you, Ash, but we're past the point of requiring permission to ask personal questions. This is all one big personal question."
"Is that a yes or a no, Zelda?"
"Yes, go ahead," I replied.
He dragged his hand from between my shoulders to my waist,slow slow slowlike he wanted me to record the feel of his fingertips all over my skin. "What the hell are you wearing?"
