“Are you done?” he grits out, between his teeth.
“Does it hurt?” I ask, looking from his clenched jaw to the position of my hands. I’d thought I was being gentle enough.
He huffs out a pained laugh. “No. Jesus Christ. Let’s just wrap this up.”
And that’s when I look lower, precisely where I was trying not to look, and notice the hard shape of his cock wedged against his boxers, swelling like a fucking balloon.
He got an erection from me sitting here fixing his wound. I guess I wasn’t the only one thinking of the possibilities.
God, the way I want to run my hand low and grasp him. Ishakewith the desire to do so.
It wouldn’t be quiet sex. It wouldn’t be sex we’d placed on a calendar, commencing after we’d digested dinner but before our ten p.m. bedtime. It would be desperate, fumbling and grinding, and hands and mouths that couldn’t do enough at once.
“Okay,” I say, my voice whistling high and thin through my throat, “I think it’s set. I’m going to bandage it, but just don’t get it wet for the next twenty-four hours, all right?”
I leave him to deal with dressing and whatever else he needs to deal with. I will not allow myself to consider how he might go about the latter.
I go down to the car and climb up to get the stuff out of the luggage carrier. It’s a lot harder than he made it look, but Elijah’s got a foot on me. I basically have to lie across the roof to reachthe interior of the carrier...while avoiding the bent piece of metal that stabbed him. It’ll be a tedious process when there’s no one to pass stuff to.
“Get down from there,” he demands. I’ve only gotten one box down. I guess he didn’t deal with that erection the way I was imagining he might.
“You can’t do it,” I tell him. “You’ve got to let that wound seal up.”
He plucks me off the roof with his hands on my waist as if I weigh no more than a pillow.
“I’m just going to have to glue you back together again,” I complain.
Although he didn’t seem to mind it all that much the first time. And neither, to be fair, did I. Maybe it’s okay if I have to glue him together again.
That night,we order pizza for dinner and eat it out on the screen porch, him on the couch, me on the chair diagonal, our bare feet side by side on the ottoman.
“God, I love pizza,” I groan. I’m stuffed but I just want to keep going.
“Let me guess,” Elijah says. “Thomas doesn’t think you should eat it.”
I shrug. “I mean, it does have less-than-ideal macros.”
“Then this is the thing,” he says.
“What thing?”
“The thing you’re going to show him he needs to provide for you, Easton. Every life needs to have the occasional moment of downtime and every diet needs to have the occasional piece of pizza. Show him that you’re at the beach. Take a picture ofyour slice of pizza. Make him realize you’ve been sacrificing for him, and you don’t fucking have to. He’ll realize you’re happier without him and panic.”
Thomas might worry, though he’s just as apt to thinkJesus, that sausage on the pizza is full of nitrates.
I want him to think I’m happy without him. What makes me hesitate is that...I sort of am?
I blink the thought away as soon as it appears.Of courseI’m happier. Who isn’t happier off a diet than on one? Who isn’t happier hanging out at the beach than sitting in a dark lab? That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to eat non-stop junk food and quit your job.
I take a picture of the pizza in my lap, our feet resting against each other’s on the ottoman, and post it to my stories.
I smile once it’s loaded, and it really has nothing to do with Thomas potentially seeing it. It’s just that after years of carefully curating my image and what I show the world, it’s now sandy bare feet, bare legs, the night sky, a piece of pizza.
My face isn’t even showing, but I finally recognizemyselfin this photo.
I close my eyes and release a tired laugh. “He’s going to write back to criticize me for not eating the appropriate ratio of protein to carbohydrates.”
“At last, you admit your relationship wasn’t perfect.”
