It was meant as a warning, but he took it as a challenge. He doubled down. His fingers fucked into me, matching the rhythm of his mouth. “Going to cum,” I warned him.
One more pump of his fingers against my prostate, and I was diving over the edge. His nose hit my pelvis, and I held him there as I unloaded down his throat. I was aware of sounds falling incoherently from my lips. They were a mix of Italian and English and what Moira called my slut language—which, to my understanding, was just moaning and grunting. I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
When I finally crashed back down to earth, he was still on his knees in front of me. My cock was still in his mouth, and hishand was moving fast over himself. I watched in wonder as he came over his fist in just a few strokes.
He’d gotten off just from getting me off.
I pulled him to his feet and kissed him thoroughly, tasting myself on his tongue. I walked him back under the water, letting it wash away the remnants of our release. When we finally separated, I washed his body and hair. I helped dry him off, and I got him into bed. I pulled him to my chest, taking the role of the big spoon for the night. I needed to hold him, and I had a feeling he needed to be held.
I was on the precipice of sleep when I heard his soft voice. “What am I going to do, Noah?”
“Tomorrow, baby. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” The sun was beginning to peek through the curtains. Tomorrow was already here. “Later,” I amended. “Get some sleep, and we’ll figure everything out later.”
11
Theweekendpassedina blur.
We slept until noon on Saturday, and I woke up to a slew of texts from my friends. Eli had seen an article about the fire online and recognized my building. He’d seen my car in the pictures, and that was when the messages started. Between him, Jonas, Seb, and Holden, there were over a hundred messages in the group chat as well as individual texts, each one with increasing panic and anxiety. I even had a few missed calls I’d somehow slept through. Somehow, they’d gotten a hold of Noah’s number too. His phone had been blown up just as much.
While Noah made us lunch, I called my friends and gave them the rundown of the night before.
After that, Noah played chauffeur for me. He drove me all around King’s Bay, helping me pick up the bare necessities that I’d need until I was able to get back into my apartment. Thank god for the ability to pay with my phone. My wallet was still in my apartment with all my cards, cash, and ID. While we were at the store, Noah spent a few minutes trying to convince meto switch up the face wash I’d been using since we were in high school for one of his fancier name brand ones.
He’d huffed and puffed when I refused, but I managed to get out of the skincare aisle without some complicated ritual full of ingredients I couldn’t pronounce.
When we got home, he surprised me with a pack of rubber ducks he’d picked up while I’d shopped for clothes. I hadn’t even thought about replacing any of my ducks, and I would have regretted that lack of foresight later.
We spent Sunday recovering from the stress of the weekend.
By the time Wednesday rolled around, I felt comfortable at Noah’s place. We’d fallen into an easy routine. I woke up when he did, and we had a quick breakfast before he left for work. I spent the day working on my laptop, talking to my three rubber ducks, and mourning the fact that none of them had a single ounce of personality. At least not compared to the ones languishing in my apartment. By the time he got home from work, I was usually ready to put away my computer. I didn’t accomplish as much on his couch as I did at my own apartment, surrounded by my ducks, but at least I was making strides on my projects. We made dinner, watched movies, lost ourselves in each other’s bodies. It was a strange domesticity, one that made slow impossible.
How could I go slow when I woke up in his arms every morning, fell asleep in them every night?
Thursday morning, I got a call from my landlord saying that it would be a few weeks, minimum, before we could return to our apartments. He reminded me that rental insurance would cover a hotel if I needed one, but that the property management company would help anyone who couldn’t afford the out-of-pocket expenditure until insurance reimbursed them. My landlord was one of the reasons I’d never upgraded my apartment, even after I made enough money to move intosomething nicer. Locally owned was always better than some corporation that wouldn’t have cared if their residents had a place to stay. We could all come the next day to get a few essentials, but other than that, the building was closed until further notice.
I spent the rest of the day making a list, trying to think of what I’d need from my apartment. Other than my keys and wallet, everything I thought of felt dumb. Even if the yellow ducks didn’t have personality, it seemed inane to try to lug down my bins of rubber ducks from my apartment. It would feel like I was taking an unnecessary risk. Clothes. I’d need clothes. I had a few outfits at Noah’s, but I wantedmyfavorite shirts and jeans and favorite hoodie, the olive green one I’d had since college. I wrote and rewrote my list, and I called the day a loss in terms of getting any actual work done.
That night, I went out with my friends. We met at The Rusty Nail, and they listened to everything about the fire and the week living at Noah’s. They brought me presents, mostly rubber ducks with more personality than the ones Noah had grabbed from the baby aisle at the big box store. My friends teased me about staying with Noah intermittently over the course of the next few hours, interspersed with tidbits about their weeks and Eli’s flirtatious side quests with the hot bartender. By the time the night was over, I was ready to go back to Noah’s place and curl up on the couch with some Netflix documentary that I wouldn’t pay attention to.
Hisplace because I couldn’t call it our place. No matter how much it was already feeling like that. Calling it our place would be the opposite of taking the emotional parts of our relationship slow. But damn, as I let myself into his place using the key he’d made me Saturday, it really did feel like coming home.
“You know, you never told me when you got this,” Noah muttered later that night while we were lying in bed.
He traced the pad of his thumb over the wordsSemi-Sweettattooed on my side. The simple touch was distracting, and for a moment, I could barely remember that I had the tattoo, let alone when I’d gotten it. I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath as his hand dipped lower, tracing the design of the chocolate chip underneath it. “It’s part of a matching set,” I told him, slowly opening my eyes. “Brooke has the other one.”
“Your friend from California, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What does hers say?”
“Half-Doomed.” It was part of a song lyric, one of our favorites to do on karaoke nights at the small bar just off campus. “We got them before she dropped out to pursue her dreams of being a world champion surfer.” I remembered that she made me go first. She held my hand as the tattoo artist inked the design permanently onto my skin. “I think it was junior year?”
“It’s a lot bigger than my tattoo.”
“You don’t have a tattoo.” I’d seen every inch of his naked body over the past week. I’d seen him in the shower. I’d woken up next to him. We’d kissed and explored one another, and I was fairly certain I’d have noticed if he had a tattoo. But no, his skin was as unmarked as it had been in high school.
“I have a tattoo,” he insisted. He dropped his hand from my side and propped up his head.
