He kisses me again when it’s over, and then I manage to roll off before the condom can get weird. We don’t touch except for our hands, which we manage to half tangle together before we’re too tired to give up on it. My phone’s by my shoulder, and after a few minutes, it buzzes. I glance at the screen.
“They’re not actually gonna call the cops, are they?” he asks, sounding wrung out.
“She’s probably forgotten about it by now.”
“Here’s hoping,” he says with a funny little half smile, his face smushed into a pillow, and I snort.
CHAPTER THREE
JAVIER
I grabthe edge of the sink in Madeline’s bathroom, the cool edge of the countertop biting into my palm, close my eyes, and try not to think. I breathe in. I breathe out.
In theory, I know fifty breathing exercises, a hundred ways to calm myself down, and two hundred fucking platitudes about taking things one day at a time, but I can still feel her hands on my chest like they’re burned in, and it makes everything else irrelevant.
“It’s fine,” I whisper, because I guess I talk to myself now. “It’s fine. You’re fine.” There’s no rule that saysNo sex,after all. There’s no rule that saysDon’t meet new peopleand there’s no rule that saysDon’t derive some pleasure from life. There’s a rule that saysDon’t lie,though, and I’m smart enough to know it includesto myself.
It always happens like this. It’s easy to make promises—No big changes for a year! No triggering situations! I’ll keep my head down and work hard and live with my mom and stay sober this time!—and so much harder to turn an old buddy down when he asksHey, want to go get a drink?
And yeah, I did want to go out, even though it’s Recovery 101 that Alcohol Is Not A Great Idea, Usually. Even if boozewas never my main problem, it’s sure never helped me make good decisions. Even though I had a soda—great work, me, nice job just barely not fucking it up—I stillwent to a bar,lied to someone, then went back to her place and fucked her.
And it was so good my fingertips are still tingling. But that doesn’t matter, that’s not thepoint. The point is I swore to myself—and my mom and my siblings and everyone who matters to me—that I’d give it a year. A year of no big changes, no big events, just tackling life and getting my shit together.
This doesn’t feel like tackling life. This feels like acting on impulse and looking before I leap and an infatuation I can’t afford right now. This feels like I’m months away from screaming her name on my knees in the rain or building her a surprise house or challenging her brother to a duel. Does she have a brother? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about her.Fuck.
Well—I know she’s got her own place in a normal neighborhood, a cozy little one-bedroom apartment on the second floor. I know she’s got a fake-fur throw on the back of her couch and a neatly organized shoe rack in her entryway, and I know her bathroom is small and full of hair stuff and skin stuff and makeup that’s all lined up on racks. I know there are no toothpaste dots on the sparklingly clean mirror and there’s framed art of an ocean-dwelling dinosaur on the wall and her shower curtain has a giant squid sinking a ship on it.
I take my hands off the counter because I’m probably messing it up somehow.
When I head back out,I can see her in the kitchen. She’s drinking a glass of water and wearing a short robe with leopardson it and huge fuzzy purple slippers. I’m still naked, and now I feel like it. Exposed and awkward and like I’ve got too many hands. My dick is justout. I find my clothes and pull them on before I head into the kitchen, which is dark except for the light over her stove.
She fills a glass and hands it to me. I thank her and drink and try not to look at her standing there, barefoot in that loud robe, her makeup off and her hair still practically glowing. I try not to want to take her back into the bedroom and do it all again.
“So,” she says after I’ve put my glass into her sink. “You’re heading back to New York tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” I say, and why thefuckdid I tell her I’m from New York of all places? I’ve been once in my entire life. “We were only down for a couple days. My friend’s aunt has a condo.”
That’s not true, either. Fuck.
“Sounds fun,” she says.
“I had a good time.”
She snorts, crosses her ankles, and pushes a hand through her hair. “Glad I could help.”
“Are you kidding? That was the highlight of my trip.”
Madeline looks away and blushes so hard I can see it, even in the low light. I have to fight the urge to reach out, take her chin, turn her face to mine again and—what? Kiss her? Ask if I can stay?
Tell her that I’m not on vacation, I’m not staying at my friend’s aunt’s condo? Tell her I’m six weeks out of rehab and living with my mom while she sorts through the rubble of her marriage to my dad and I sort through the rubble of my life, all of which is my fault? Or do I tell her that I should go because my shift at the tourist-trap candy store near the beach starts in a few hours and I’ve gotta make sure my hairnet is on straight? Or maybe I tell her that this was the third time I went to rehab, and no matter how desperately I want this time to stick, numberfour sometimes feels inevitable? That fucking up and relapsing feels like a matter ofwhen, notif, because I’ve known myself for twenty-eight years now?
I don’t say any of that because I know, thanks to plenty of trial and error, when something is too much.
“I should get going,” I tell her instead. “We’re supposed to hit the road pretty early.”
There’s a long moment where she looks at me like she’s expecting something else. But then she nods. “Right, yeah. Did you order an Uber yet, or…”
Then I’m doing all the business of leaving: requesting a car and putting my shoes on, making sure I’ve got my wallet and my phone and the keys to my mom’s house, and then we’re at her front door.
