I frowned, twirling the strands of his hair between my fingers. “So… does that mean… can we not…” I couldn’t figure out how to ask what I wanted to, what I needed to. My eyes fell to his chest, a thick, sticky knot in my throat as I tried to swallow past it. “Was last night it?”
Reese watched me for a long moment before he dipped down, forcing me to look him in the eye. “Do you want it to be?”
I shook my head immediately.
“What do you want?”
I almost laughed, like it was easy to say, to achieve. “I want you,” I answered simply. “I want… us. But, I’m scared. I don’t want you to get fired, and I don’t know how my uncle will react. Or what people will say, how they’ll see us. What about The Kinky Starfish? And the parents at Westchester, will they worry about their kids? And what about…” I sighed, biting my lower lip. “I don’t know if I… I don’t know if I’m enough for you. I’m young, and inexperienced, and—”
“Hey,” Reese interrupted me, tilting my chin with his knuckles until my eyes met his once more. “Do you remember what I said to you that night we adopted Rojo?”
I loved the way he said we, like we were a unit, a team, a thing.
I nodded.
“What did I say?” he probed.
“You said I was enough,” I whispered.
Reese’s eyes danced between mine. “I did. And I meant it. Then, and now. You are enough, Sarah. And I want you, too.”
My eyes widened. “You do?”
He chuckled at that, leaning in to press his lips tenderly to mine. “I love how you act so surprised, like you’re anything less than the most beautiful, most incredible, strongest woman I’ve ever known.”
I beamed, pressing up to kiss him again before my head fell back into the pillows. I shook it, staring up at the most beautiful, most incredible, strongest man I’d ever known — wondering how in the hell he saw the same in me.
But none of that mattered to anyone outside of these walls.
All they would see is a teacher abusing his power, a student feeling like she was in love when she was just enamored by an older man. They’d see perversion, not beauty.
“What do we do, then?” I asked him. “How do we…”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said, kissing my fingertips. “I will figure it out. Okay? But we don’t have to have all the answers right now.” With that, he rolled, rubbing Rojo’s belly before popping up out of bed. His hair was a disheveled mess, but all I could stare at were the muscles that lined his rib cage, his abdomen, leading all the way down to the sharp V above his belt. “Right now,” he said, reaching a hand back for me. “We both need a shower. And then you need to figure out a story for why you stayed out all night.”
I laughed, letting him pull me up. “Yeah… that will be a fun conversation.”
“Was it worth it, though?” Reese asked, pulling me flush against him. His lips found mine, hands splaying the small of my back and pulling me into him as he stole my breath.
And I didn’t have to answer out loud for him to know my response.
It was worth it.
So, so worth it.
Reese
There was one day from my childhood that I had always remembered.
I wasn’t sure why this particular day stuck in my mind, especially since nothing truly remarkable happened, but I’d never forgotten it. It was just a weekday over the summer, right before I went into my sophomore year of high school. Mallory and I were in our backyard with Charlie and her older brother, Graham. This was before I saw Charlie as anything other than my best friend’s little sister, and before I lost my family, and before I realized that anything could ever come between me and my love for the piano. It was just a hot summer day in Pennsylvania, and we were in the back yard, flying down a homemade slip-n-slide we’d made.
It kept us entertained the entire day.
I remember listening to the new Pearl Jam album, spraying my little sister with the water and talking to Graham about the hot new freshmen we’d be fighting over when school started. Mom had been working on the house inside, but stopped to bring us lunch. She’d watched us play for a while, laughing every time I’d try to run all the way down the tarp without falling.
I never succeeded.
And when Dad got home, he came out back, still dressed in his suit and tie from the work day. Rather than just watching, he’d stripped down to his old man boxers and dove straight down the tarp on his stomach.
We’d all chased after him.
That memory was as brazen in my mind as it was the very day it all happened. Maybe it was because it was a time we were together as a family. Maybe it just reminded me of simpler days. Regardless, it had always stuck with me — and it wasn’t necessarily what happened on that day as much as it was how I felt. I was alive, young, with limitless opportunities ahead of me. It was a lazy summer day, one where I had nowhere to be and nothing to do, one where everyone I loved was right where they were supposed to be.
It was the same feeling I’d had since Saturday night.
Only now, it was because of Sarah.
Just like that day, she made me feel alive. She made me feel young, and limitless, and wild and free. It’d only been a few days since we’d surrendered to each other, since the night we crossed every line that still stood between us. I wanted her, and she wanted me, and we had so much still to figure out but nothing else mattered outside of the fact that we were together.
She was the light I never thought I’d see again, the purpose I thought I’d lost forever.
The last few days had been a blur of piano lessons that didn’t last long enough and kisses stolen between songs. After she stayed out all night that Saturday, she’d been trying to be more careful, returning home to her uncle’s as soon as our lessons were over. For three whole days, she’d been all I could think about, and yet we hadn’t had more than a few hours together each day.
But tonight, she was mine.
She told her uncle she was staying at a friend’s after work, and for the first time since Saturday, I was going to have her all to myself again. It was enough to make me bounce in the shower as I scrubbed my hair, my body, wishing I could fast forward through the night to when we were coming home together.
I liked me better when I was with her.
Rojo was sprawled out on the bath mat when I got out of the shower, still dripping. She glanced lazily up at me, as if I were the inconvenience as I stepped around her for my towel.
“You actually going to share the bed tonight?” I asked her with a smirk, scrubbing the towel over my hair.
Rojo just huffed, flicking her tail a few times before she gave me an exaggerated yawn and spread out on the mat even more.
I chuckled. “Guess not.”
I turned on the same Pearl Jam album from my favorite childhood memory as I got ready for work, singing along with Eddie Vedder to the best of my abilities. I felt like a high school kid again, bouncing around, singing and smiling and floating like a damn fool because of a girl. I wondered idly if Sarah and I had gone to high school together, if she would have been interested in me.
I knew without a doubt that answer was no.
I was a little shit, and I didn’t know how to treat a woman back then. Hell, maybe I never learned that lesson. Judging by the way I’d done Blake, the way I’d tried to steal Charlie from Cameron — I didn’t exactly have the best track record.