Yeah, Cal understood why he’d been booted. So he sent Dongyeon home, made sure Teddy had a driver waiting for him anytime he decided to head back to Hannam, and headed home himself. And there was a comfort to that, to knowing there was someone to make sure they got home safe, and someone to come home to.
“You’re so corny.” She’d giggled in between his kisses, moments after he'd burst through his front door, tossed off his jacket and his shoes and found her eating grapes on his kitchen island. Lia thought he had a cat. He did not.
“Also a little horny. For you.”
“That too.” Her hands pressed against his chest as he pushed her against the back of her bedroom door. He’d always vaguely enjoyed Lia’s perfume, but up close, against the pulse of her neck, it was addicting.
“It’s the same store you bought the bathroom hand soap from,” Lia explained. “I wanted…I wanted something to remember living with you by. Back when I was hiding the fact that I was a BoLT.”
“Ahh Lia. I hope you never have to hide from me again,” he said, and he truly meant it. Because he could get addicted to the feeling of Lia’s skin against his, to her body in his arms.
“Huy.” Lia put her hands on both his cheeks and squished them together, making her giggle as Cal glared at her. “Relax. We can do this as much as we want. We have time.”
“It doesn’t feel like it, though,” he argued as she released his cheeks. He stood to his full height, towering over her, resting his arm across her head and his forehead on his arm, his other hand on her waist in a light hold. “It feels like I’ll do something wrong, you’ll disappear, and I’ll be alone again.”
He recognized the look she gave him then. It was the same look she’d given him the first time he’d bought her breakfast, or that time they’d sat on the swings and he said he wasn’t good enough. Lia tiptoed and caught his lips in a kiss, her hands looping around his neck, drawing him lower.
“You’ve never been alone, Cal. Even more so now,” Lia told him, pressing her forehead to his. Then she went back down. Cal felt her waist move as she nervously shifted her weight from footto foot. She seemed uncharacteristically shy and nervous, which reminded him of the day he met her.
“Have you…done this before?” she asked.
“Yes.” His eyes widened, because he never actually considered that when Lia agreed to this, she possibly would never have done it before? Which was very narrow-minded of him.
“I meant, uh…you’ve done this before, with a woman?”
Oh.“Yes.” He grinned at her.
“You debutedreallyyoung, okay. I was just checking.” He could see her face turn an embarrassed flush of red.
“I was already 20, FYI. And I thought I was super straight at the time. So I have slept with women.”
“Wow, edi ikaw na.” Lia rolled her eyes, but there was a kind of endearment to the sarcasm that Cal knew to be a particularly Pinoy thing. He laughed and bent down to hold the backs of Lia’s thighs to lift her up and press her back against the door, wrapping her thighs around his waist.
“And you?” he asked, kissing the back of her ear. Surprise, it made her shudder and giggle. Good to know. “Have you?”
“Slept with a woman? Can’t say I have.”
“Very funny.” He stopped, and the little whimper she made seared into his brain. “But seriously, Lia. Is this your first time?”
“It’s not,” she assured him. “It’s just been a while. A year.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “I haven’t been with anyone since Bomseok either, so.” He winced, because he was pretty sure somewhere out there was a rulebook that said you should never mention your ex when trying to have sex with someone new.
“It’s okay,” Lia told him, cutting off his errant thought with a kiss, grinding her hip against his. “I trust you. And just in case, I know where you live, so…”
That made him laugh, holding on to her bottom as he whirled them both around, making her shriek in surprise before hegently deposited her on the bed. He took off his jacket and tossed it aside, and?—
“Should we have a safe word?”
He gave it some thought. He tugged the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans, watching as Lia’s eyes grew almost comically wide at the sight.
“Donggu,” he said, pulling at the hem from the back.
“No!”
“Cat.”
“Cal!”
