She just stares at me with wide eyes when I return andthrow it towards her. It almost lands directly on her face, but she catches it. “Why?” She asks.
My fists clench at my sides, the thought of her walking home in the dark —completely alone— is enough to drive me mad, let alone the thought that she’s been doing it for who knows how long.
“Because,” I growl, “it’s not safe for you to be out there alone this late. Now put on the damn shirt.”
There’s a look of defiance in her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. After a beat of silence, whatever she was feeling fades into something… softer. Something raw.
Sasha pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, and I take that as my cue to leave.
“I’ll be downstairs on the couch if you need anything.” I grab a pillow off my bed and turn towards the door, a heavy feeling filling my stomach as I do so.
“Would it-“ she pauses for a moment, and I turn to look at her. She’s got my t-shirt held tight in her hands, “would it be so bad if you stayed with me?”
Jesus Christ.
That damn look in her eyes just about breaks my damn heart. She looks like a kicked puppy, and I can’t tell whether it’s because of me or not.
“I don’t like being alone, it—“ she doesn’t finish her sentence.
It’s like everything you’ve ever feared crawls up your spine and takes a chunk out of your heart.
I know the feeling, and after a couple more seconds of trying to decode the look in her eyes, I realize it’s fear.
She’s scared to be alone.
I give her a soft smile. Not a cocky or teasing grin, but something that tells her I understand without either of ushaving to voice the feeling. “Whatever you want, Pixie,” I tell her softly.
Her shoulders sag in relief, and that look I never want to see on her face again fades. She melts back into the girl I’ve grown to know, the girl who is smart and funny and secretly really sassy.
It’s the Sasha I’ve grown to love.
And even though I don’t have the balls to tell her, I’ve grown comfortable with the feeling.
She darts off to the bathroom down the hall, living up to the nickname I’ve given her.
I pull off my hoodie, throwing it to the floor before I swap out my jeans for a pair of sweats. I usually like to sleep in boxers, I overheat in anything more than that, but I’ll do it if it means she feels comfortable.
Crawling into bed, I try to tame the nerves firing in every inch of my body. I have to play it cool, I can’t fuck this up.
When Sasha returns, I have to hold back a groan at the sight of her. That long Livler athletics shirt hits just above her mid-thighs, the black panties she has on peak out when she turns around to throw her clothes on my dresser.
Her fucking ass is a dream, better than I could have ever imagined. Full and soft.
She crawls into bed next to me, and I pray to god that she doesn’t notice the raging hard-on I’m sporting. Luckily, when she lays down, she turns to face me.
We look at one another for a long while, the tension building with every moment that passes.
“My brother used to sleep with his TV on,” she says, breaking the silence. “He hated how quiet the world was when night came and everyone was asleep.”
This is the first time she’s talked to me about him.I didn’t know him well, only from playing on rival teams, but he always seemed like a cool dude. I would have never guessed he was like me in that way.
She brushes her fingers across my forehead, moving the pieces of hair that had fallen into my face. “I never really understood how he felt. I mean, I understood the loneliness, but mine was different. I knew what he was going through. I was probably the only person who really saw the pain he was in, but every day he would wake up with a smile on his face and make people laugh.”
I hold my breath, trying to stay still as she speaks about him. This has to be hard for her. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to lose a sibling, the closest thing I can think of is losing one of the guys.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, playing with the dark strands mindlessly, but never taking her eyes off mine.
“When I—“ she stops for a second, tears slowly welling in her eyes. “When I lost him, I finally understood the kind of quiet he always talked about. He was always the life of the party, and I was always the quiet loner with no friends, so I thought I knew what he was talking about, but I didn’t. It’s suffocating, and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him and tell him that everything was going to be okay, that I finally understood. But by then it was too late.”
