My heart thuds, kicking hard against my ribcage. God, I want a repeat so fuckin’ bad. I want the heat in my blood, the burn in my belly. That ache in my dick.
I want it.
Icraveit.
Joss drinks his beer and lets me stew on that for a while. Then he sighs. “I think you’re asking me about my mum.”
“Am I?”
“It’s the thing that makes me pull this face.” He screws his features up on purpose. It looks nothing like the haunted expression from before, but I get his point.
I take a chance and wrap my leg around his, just a little. He doesn’t shift away, and I lean forward. “You don’t have to talk about it. I only meant that you could.”
“Oh, I know. You’ve shown me who you are. Even the bits you don’t know so well yourself.”
“That sounds convoluted as fuck.”
“Doesn’t have to be, but I don’t mind talking about my mum. It just makes me a little…” He waves his hand. “…unpredictable, I guess. I don’t usually stay in one place long enough to have these conversations. Don’t form those bonds, and I don’t want to. You’re an anomaly, mate. Whatever happens, I hope you know that.”
Whatever happens.Sounds equal parts amazing and fuckin’ horrible. And I know why. Because we’re a month into a summer that’s going to end in him leaving, and I need to accept that.
I do accept it. It’d be weird as hell if I didn’t. But there’s a knot in my chest when I think about it that has nothing to do with burning cars and death screams.
Life is complicated.
I twine our legs a little tighter. “I don’t mind being an anomaly.”
Joss hums, then breaks our stare-off to tilt his face to the sky. The stars are out, naturally, and they make his eyes shimmer as he takes them in.
When he looks back at me, he’s different, though I can’t pinpoint how or why.
He takes a deep breath. “My mum was an addict. She left us when we were young, and I never forgave her for it.”
“She’s passed?”
“That’s not what I meant, but yeah. When I was eighteen. Overdosed in a shitastic crack den. Police didn’t find her body for weeks.”
“Dang.” I swallow thickly. “I’m so sorry, man.”
“Don’t be. I hated her. I was relieved when she died, and then I hatedmyselffor that.”
“Because…you didn’t really hate her?”
“Oh, I did. And in some ways, I had every right to, but I let that consume me so much I didn’t see that she wasn’t this evil caricature I’d created in my head until it was too late.”
“She was sick,” I realize.
He nods. “And I made sure to tell her she was a piece of shit right up until the end. Nice, eh?”
“You were a kid who needed his mom. Nothing you said can take that away.”
“What about what I took from her, though?” Joss taps his fingers. “And from my sister? I was the oldest and I let my hate become hers, so she lost that relationship too.”
“That’s why you don’t talk with her?”
“We don’t talk because I punched her bellend of a boyfriend last Christmas.”
“Why?”
