“The only way to get more experienced at something,” she says, “is toget more experience. But listen, I'm not going to sit here and beg you to deflower me.”
My body jolts like she just poked me with a live wire.
Just the thought of being the one who does…
The first.
The only…
Well, that thought makes every rational argument I have line up and walk off a ledge.
No. I can’t let it.
I drop my head and breathe very deliberately through my nose. “Fucking hell.” I’m trying to have a serious conversation but my dick is hard and I feel like a total, horned-up, hopeless piece of shit.
Then her cool, soft fingers are on my face, cupping it gently, tilting it up.
I lift my eyes to hers. See something that looks like tenderness there.
“Walker. I'm an adult. I know what I want. At least respect my ability to decide for myself, even if you don't respect the decision.”
“I do respect it.” I turn my face slightly into her palm without thinking. “But I'm afraid I'll hurt you.”
“I'm not afraid of getting hurt.”
“I will.” The word comes out cracked, but absolute. Because it's the one thing I'm sure of. “Sadie, I will. That's notself-pity talking. I have a history, and the history doesn't lie. Messy breakups, a failed marriage… it’s fucking baggage, baby, and I don’t want to bring it to your door.”
“I don’t thinkyouwill hurt me,” she interrupts gently. “But I already know the ending will hurt. We're from different worlds. This is all temporary. Yes, it will hurt when it ends. But I can survive pain. I have before. And in the meantime…” She holds my gaze. “Isn’t it better to have loved and lost than never have loved at all?”
Love.
Love fuckinghurts. Just like the song says. Just like the hundred songs I've written about that very subject.
You'd think I'd be an expert by now, and yet sitting here with her, I feel like I'm wading into water so deep I can't find the bottom.She might be the virgin, but it's never felt like this before for me either. Not even close. It’s terrifying.
I lean forward and rest my forehead against hers. She doesn't pull away. Her hand is still curved against my jaw, her thumb tracing a slow line along my cheekbone, and I close my eyes and let myself have five full seconds of just… this. Her warmth and softness, the sound of her breathing evening out.
At last, I say, “I can't be another person in your life who takes something from you.”
A silence. Her fingertips move in that soft, absent way against my face, like she's thinking.
“Maybe,” she says, “you should consider what you'd be giving me instead.”
“I know what I'd be giving you.” My voice is low. Ragged. “A broken man who's already peaked. Who's too damaged to do anything but drag you down. You've got your whole life ahead of you. A bright future.” I exhale. “I wrote my last good song years ago and I haven't been able to finish one since. I couldn't even play for you tonight when you asked me to. I'm not theman I was, Sadie. I don't know if that man's coming back. You deserve better than that.”
She makes a sound, soft, almost wounded, and then she's pulling me in, guiding my head down to rest against her chest. Her heartbeat is steady under my ear, and she smells like that lotion she uses at night, and her fingers come up to my hair and I think: I could stay here. I could just stay right here and not move for the rest of my life and that would be fine by me.
“Oh, Walker,” she murmurs. “You're so wrong, it's not even funny.”
I breathe her in. Trail my fingers slowly along her ribcage, feeling the warmth of her through the thin fabric. Savor the softness of her breasts beneath my cheek. The scent of her skin.
“You think that,” I tell her, “because you're young and inexperienced and don't know any better.”
The hand in my hair stops moving.
I know before I've even lifted my head that I've said the wrong thing. The worst possible thing.
I curse myself, but I don't take it back. Because as much as I hate that I said something to hurt her, I need her to understand that it’s also true.
