George
“Ineed to give you a key,” I said, standing by the entrance in the drizzling rain, watching him walk up to me. Hoodie over his head. The smile on my face simply ridiculous.
“You should.” He smiled.
He seemed calm. Much calmer than his usual self.
“I need to get the car back; my brother wants it tomorrow morning. We have football.”
“Oh.”
Like I cared about his shitty football practice. His car. His brother. I didn’t. I only cared about him being here. With me.
“I just wanted to see you,” he said from under that hoodie. It was late. Far too late. My weary bones just shivering from the droplets running down the back of my head as I fiddled with the key.
Wet and cold. Warm. His hand running up and down my back. Over my shoulder. Like he was warming me up. Protecting me from the weather.
“What’s in the bag?” I asked, nodding nonchalantly at the carrier bag he was hauling up the stairs. Me following him for once. “You moving in?”
“Nah.” He smiled, turning around and leaning against the wall, as I unlocked the front door. “Just looking out for you, baby.”
“Baby.” He made me nervous. Everything on high alert, just like he always had. This weird anticipation I’d now added to the mix. Never knowing what he was about to do.
“I do notice things,” he said quietly. “All your clothes are on the floor. No clean shirts by the front door. I know you’re overwhelmed, but we can’t have that. Bought you two new ones.”
He had as well, taking a two-pack of my normal shirts out of the bag. The right size. Of course he had.
I wanted to say “You didn’t have to.” I wanted to shout “You idiot! You don’t need to look after me.”
“Thank you,” I whispered instead. Because he’d weirdly offloaded a huge bunch of stress from my already flattened shoulders.
I was such a mess. So overwhelmed. So incredibly underwhelmed with myself.
“Got your yoghurts as well, and some milk. Bananas. Energy is good.”
“Yeah.”
He was now loading groceries into my fridge, effortlessly removing the half-empty milk carton that had curdled days ago. Putting it in the bin, like he lived here. “I’m not…”
Words. Neither of us was good at those.
“No, you’re not,” he said calmly, folding the now-empty grocery bag into a neat little square against his chest. “And it’s fine. I’m here now.”
“I don’t…”
I had no idea what I was trying to say. And he just gently put the bag on the kitchen worktop, and then he walked up to me. Put his hands on my shoulders. His forehead against mine.
And in that moment? I didn’t think I needed words, since I was the one who surged upwards and kissed him because…
Right now, it was what I needed, just to know that we still had this, that he was still mine and that I loved him and that I never wanted this summer to end. This ridiculous chain of events that had led him here with his stupid shopping bag and his kindness and his…
That this was allowed was still new to me. How he brought me close and held me and let me crawl all over him. I couldn’t get enough of his skin. Of his taste, of the warmth under my hands as I tugged at his clothes so I could reach.
More. All of it. All of him.
His top was gone, just leaving the soft sheen of his skin. A trail of patchy hair all over his chest. I loved it. It was very him, and I’d mapped out those little hairy places in my head more times than I wanted to remember. Now I traced them with my fingertips. The stray long hairs above his nipples. The warm trail down his front. The way dark hairs framed his little belly button.
I suddenly wanted to lick it, but my mouth was occupied elsewhere.
