“Oh yeah…” He kissed my forehead and reached over to flip the light off. Like the dark gave him the safety to add something, he said, “Is it weird that I don’t have a problem with you being with clients?”
“I don’t think it’s weird, but if you do, we should talk about it.” I tried to keep my tone as even as possible. He was so young and it seemed way too easy to work through it with him thus far. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Weird is the wrong word,” he said. “It’s just that if you’d asked me before it was you and us and this situation, I would’ve been judgmental about it. But when it’s you, it fundamentally doesn’t bother me. And it seems like that should mean I don’t really care about you, but it’s the opposite. How does that make sense?”
This felt dangerously like it was heading into a conversation about our future and I still wasn’t ready to have that conversation.
“Sometimes things aren’t as complicated as we try to make them.”
And sometimes, they’re so much more complicated than we want them to be. Everything about being with him was easy…as long as we could be in a bubble where the real world didn’t matter. But the second I cracked that door, I had to consider his age and our professions and goals and the multitude of obstacles that stood in our way.
This couldn’t possibly last and I’d be a fool to think he was ready for that kind of commitment with the first person he’d slept with. Maybe high school sweethearts worked for some people, but those people weren’t in the world he was about to be thrown into. I’d been around fame for a few years now and there was no denying its siren song, no matter how mature he was.
I was smarter than this. I knew how all of this worked and how intense the early infatuation phase with someone could be before it wore off. And yet I couldn’t shut the voice in my head up that said this was special.
He stroked my hair. “Can we set a boundary, though?”
“Of course,” I said immediately.
“Will you promise not to fuck my brothers or anyone in my band? It may not be fair to make rules like that but—”
“Of course it’s fair, Zane. And of course I won’t. That would be crossing too many professional lines and would have way too great a chance of blowing up in everyone’s faces. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He tucked me against him like everything on his mind was resolved. I wished I could say the same.
What the hell am I doing?
Since we were talking boundaries, I asked, “Would it bother you if I’d gotten off with my client?”
He tensed. “Hell no. I want you to have a good time. Your orgasms aren’t a zero sum game I have to compete for, baby. Just because someone else gets you there doesn’t mean I can’t do it again as soon as I get my hands on you.”
I don’t deserve him…
* * *
I woke up alone.
He left me afterthat?
We’d had the most powerful sex I’d experienced in thirty-four years that included a lot of intercourse…and then he’d fucked off and left me to sleep alone?
An anxiety spiral threatened to swallow me whole.
Had it been too much for him?
His undershirt was draped over a chair, so I pulled it on and walked through to the small adjoining living room. I exhaled a breath when I found him scribbling away on a pad of paper, feet tucked under him and absolute focus etched onto his face. I felt bad for interrupting whatever he was working on, but before I could sneak away, he looked up.
Focus melted into joy, like me walking into a room was Christmas morning.
He dropped the pad onto the couch next to him and opened his arms. I was on his lap in a heartbeat.
“Whatcha doin out here, mister?”
He rubbed his nose against mine. “Writing. I woke up feeling…inspired and didn’t want to wake you.”
“Inspired, huh?” I fought a mischievous smile. “Did you do something fun last night?”
He lifted my chin and planted a series of tiny kisses on my lips. “Fun isn’t the word I’d use.”
