“Kiss me first…before the flying saucer gets here…and takes me to Texas.”
“Let’s go.”
“Sure thing…pal.”
“Come on. You’re okay.”
I feel like I’m walking, but I’m not. There’s an arm around me, and I feel half-lifted. “I don’t wanna go to Texas.”
“You won’t.”
And then everything is kind of dark, and I hear bugs and knocking. And then there’s someone else’s voice. A woman’s voice.
“Don’t wanna go to Texas…”
“Okay, pal. You sleep it off, okay?”
And then I feel big arms around me, hands holding me up, and they’re big like a man’s but I know they’re not his. And then I fall face-down onto something soft, and I feel a blanket being pulled over me.
“Kiss me…” I whisper. “In the flying saucer…”
“It’s all right, Paul.”
“Texas…”
“It’s all right. Sleep it off.”
“Mmkay…”
And somewhere in my boozed-up mind, I know I’ve done something. I know I’ve turned a corner I can’t unturn. And now I’ve revealed it, I’ve shown him. It’s like he’s seen my underpants hanging on the clothesline.
But I sink deeper and deeper into a warm sleep, dreamy and dark, deciding I’ll just worry about it tomorrow. Because tomorrow is an unmade bed, and in my dreams, he waits for me there, with warm skin and heated breaths.
CHAPTER FOUR
Asher
I DON’T KNOWwhat it is.
Maybe it’s because I haven’t gotten my rocks off with some fella in a while. Could be something in the air, summertime, and what it brings. Heat and sunsets and air so alive, so vibrant. Seasons pass, I hardly notice them now. It’s ironic, in a way. We grew up living by their rhythm. Our very lives depended upon them.
And now. Here I am. Grown up and outgrown.
The garage is quiet today except for the records and the echo of metal against metal. When there’s this kind of noise, I always hope it drowns out my thoughts, but they seem to want to poke through today. They seem to want to remind me of Paul and his hands on my face and the way he looked at me. Antonietta Stella is really trying, though. She’s just hitting the A sharp at the end of Act I when I see a shadow behind me.
I spin around in the chair and see the outline of someone at the garage door. Paul steps inside, hands in his pockets, and I go over to the record player and take the needle off. Is it wrong to feel this flutter of happiness?
He scrunches up his face. “What was that?”
“La Traviata.” I toss the wrench I’m holding into a toolbox. “What are you doing here?”
“La what?”
“I was first.”
And then he ducks his head, and I see he’s dressed all casual again, like last night. I try not to think about his hands on me. I try not to think about what he said, and in all honesty, it didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me is that I wanted to, I was going to, I was so close. What did surprise me is that I would’ve let his drunken ass sleep in my bed while I took the couch, and I would’ve made him breakfast this morning.
But he’s got that aunt, and I don’t know.
