His hands loosen from my hair and the sheets and he combs his fingers through my tangled strands before leaning forward to kiss my forehead. The kiss feels more intimate than all the other kisses, like he’s trying to say something other than voicing desire.
“Thank you for my wake-up call,” I tell him.
“Journey,” he says, still trying to catch his breath. “I need you to know ... I really like you. This isn’t just some need. I feel something for you, and it makes me crazy with the games we’re playing, but I love this kind of crazy. It’s thrilling and addictive. I just—don’t want you to push me away yet, okay?”
His explanation of feelings triggers a new kind of pain in my chest, not one made from sadness, but a feeling from missing out on being wanted in such a way. I didn’t think anyone would ever want to be with me for more than what my body can offer. “I won’t push you away, yet,” I confirm.
“I need to spend more time with you. I need to know more about you. I want to hear the missing pieces and fill in the voids. We’ll go at your pace. Whatever you want or need. Just let me in.”
This is a side of Brody I haven’t seen. He’s laying his cards down on the table, face-up without a care in the world for whatever move I make next.
I fold.
This feels too good.
“I haven’t been in a relationship. I don’t know how to do this or how it works. I’m selfish and careless and locked inside my head on some days. I struggle. I fight my own thoughts. I’m lonely and secretly needy but will never ask for a hand. It’s my only defense.”
“You don’t need to ask. I had a feeling you might secretly need someone to hold you up sometimes. I won’t tell anyone.”
I nod my head, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. “Brody?”
“Fireball,” he responds.
“Do you know what bearded barley means?”
“I figured that’s what women call a messy beard.”
I release a quiet laugh. “It’s obviously not a commonly used term, but it means something like that, but of a woman’s nether region.”
“Wait, what the hell? Are you serious?”
“I’ve Googled it.”
“I thought this song was like the sweetest romance song of the nineties and it’s some chick singing about someone going down—”
“Yup.”
“Shit,” he says. “My youth was a lie.”
“Speaking of youth … aren’t you supposed to take Hannah to school?”
Brody’s eyes widen and he tosses the covers to the side, desperately seeking the time of whatever device he can set his sights on. He reaches for my phone so it’s closest, likely finding the fifteen missed text messages he sent me last night, but I guess this isn’t a passing thought as he drops my phone to the bed and nearly falls to the floor. “Oh crap. I have to be at my mother’s house in ten minutes and she lives twenty-five minutes away.”
He struggles to get his clothes on, hopping on one foot then the other, fighting with the sleeve of his shirt while confusing it for the head-hole. “I’ll call you,” he says. “Maybe next time I’ll remember condoms too.”
I hold the sheet up to my mouth and laugh. “Drive safely,” I tell him as he grabs his coat.
Drive safely. I don’t tell people to drive safely. It just came out.
Brody pauses and his brows furrow. “I will. I promise.” He leans over me and kisses me softly. “Have a good day, beautiful.”
“You, too.”
When the door closes and I’m alone in my bed, I wait for the regret to set in. Did I screw up? Should I have waited? Should I have never let him in?
My pulse races at the answer to my question. He excites me. He makes me feel something—alive.
I don’t feel like I should have that right.
