“It must be hard,” Bobby said, “not to want that stuff.All that external validation of something you care about.”
“I guess.But I look at these people, and they’ve got it all, and they seemmiserable.And it’s because they were so desperate to get what they wanted that they didn’t care what it cost—and now that they have it, it’s like they don’t want it anymore, or it doesn’t bring them happiness, or they need more, or, I don’t know.”The look on Thatcher’s face when he made his decision.“It’s discouraging, I guess.”
The curtain rustled as Bobby slid it back, and he got into the shower.
Listen, I’m a gentleman.But I would be doing the world a disservice if I didn’t say this: there are muscles, and then there aremuscles.
(Also, some of Bobby’s hair was falling across his forehead again, and I honestly cannot explain why, but every time it makes meweak.)
“Hello,” I said.
He put his hands on my hips and drew me toward him.The spray shifted along my back, and then I bumped into Bobby: solid, warm, slick where my wet skin met his.
“Oh no,” I said.“You’re going straight to bed.”
His hands moved up, his touch so light that he was barely touching me: my waist, my chest, my back, my shoulders.Like he was tracing me.He hesitated at my neck, and his thumbs brushed the line where the cord had bit into my flesh.
“I love you,” he said, the words so low that the sound of the shower almost swallowed them.
I started to tell him that I loved him too, but he kissed me.
Chapter 25
You knowgoodsleep?Like, reallygood sleep?
There is literally nothing better.
(Okay, there’sthat.But that falls in the category of strictlynone-of-your-business.)
(I mean, if Ihadto say something, though, it would be that if you ever find someone who makes you feel treasured and safe and beautiful and, uh,ready to go, then yeah, you should probably hang on to them.)
(God, why am I still thirteen years old on the inside?)
Poor Bobby woke sometime after dawn so he could go to work; by my sleep-addled calculations, we’d only been asleep for frumpteen minutes, but I got up long enough to give him a kiss before collapsing onto the pillow again.
The next time my eyes opened, it was nine.
Now, nine o’clock isn’t agreatwake-up time.In my opinion, frankly, we’d all be a lot happier if the day didn’t get rolling until eleven, eleven-thirty.
But listen: some days you wake up warm and glowy and like everything inside you has turned into honey butter.(The most delicious of all butters, unless we’re talking savory, and then obviously it’s garlic butter.) I felt so good—aches and pangs and bruised throat aside—that I couldn’t even be mad that it was only nine.
Also, someone—severalsomeones—were talking in the hall, and some of them were making zero effort at all to keep their voices down.
“Because if he’s naked, I’ll be forever scarred.”That was Fox.“There are things that one simply cannot unsee.”
“If he’s naked, then Keme should wake him up,” Millie said with cheery matter-of-factitude.“Because he’s a boy.”
I didn’t know, until that moment, that you could actuallyheara teenage boy’s horror.
“What about Indira?”Keme said with what was unmistakably desperation.
“You’re all being silly about this,” Indira said.“Leave him alone.He’ll wake up whenever he wakes up.”
I didn’t want to get into the weeds, but I felt like Indira was undermining her own point.Normally, she tended toward the quiet side, but this last statement had a quality I remembered hearing as an adolescent.I called itparental-volume-you-can’t-ignore, and no matter what they said, it was always on purpose.
“If heisnaked,” Fox said, “Idon’twant to see his shanks.”
“I’m not naked!”I shouted.(Although—check—yes, I was.) “And I don’t even know what a shank is!”
