“Five kittens. Or possibly four and a tail. Hard to say.” I watch as she smiles and leans in, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over them. For all that she was opposed, Liesel is just a big softy at the end of the day. “I think they probably need some rest.”
“I brought up a bowl for some water. We didn’t have any cat food, but I mashed up some tuna.” She pushes in with a bowl in each hand, and I take them from her, setting them where Abby can reach them easily.
“Thank you,” Sugar says quickly, earning a pleased look from Liesel. “Can I help carry these dirty towels downstairs or something?”
“Don’t trouble yourself. Just hand them over and I’ll take care of it.” She grabs the laundry basket from the closet and drops in the used towels. She tells me, “I’m staying the night in the guest house. It’s too slick to drive all the way home. If you need something—anything…” She gives me a soft, maternal look. “Then tough shit, pal. I’m off the clock.”
“Ah, that’s the warm and fuzzy Liesel we all know and tolerate.” More seriously, I say, “Thanks for the help and the dinner. We’ve got everything from here.”
Liesel takes the basket and leaves the room. It’s getting late now. Late enough that we should think about settling in for the night. In my bedroom. Together. Alone.
Sugar looks down at herself, pulling a face. “I know I didn’t technically touch anything, but do you think I could clean up a bit?” Almost instantly, she backtracks. “Fuck, never mind. All I thought to bring is the dress I’m wearing tomorrow.”
“No problem, I can get you something,” I offer, going into the closet that connects to the bathroom. I grab a lacrosse sweatshirt from freshman year and a pair of flannel shorts. I hand them to her and excuse myself.
When I walk into the suite off the bedroom, Liesel is still there, collecting our dirty dishes from dinner.
“Are you still working?” I chide.
“Just putting this stuff away,” she insists, making to leave, but I stop her.
“So…what do you think?”
“About the dishes? You could have taken them out yourself, yes.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m talking about Sugar.”
Liesel gives me a soft look—without all the bullshit artifice. “She’s beautiful, Sebastian. Very polite.” She glances toward the bathroom door. “She seems nervous, though.”
“She’s definitely skittish,” I admit. “Her family doesn’t have money like we do.”
“Hardly any families have money like you do,” Liesel reminds me, watching me closely. “I don’t think you’ve ever brought a girl home before.”
“I know.” I scratch the back of my neck. “She’s…different, I guess. I think she’ll be around for a while, so I figured she should meet Mom and everything. If she has a good day tomorrow, I mean.”
“I think your mom would like that.” She gives me a soft pat on the shoulder. “Are you going to see her? Because I think knowing you’re here would be a nice start to making that good day happen tomorrow.”
Knowing she’s right, I follow her out, and go to see my mom.
Liesel wasn’t lying. I spend ten minutes beside my mom’s bed, reading her a passage from her favorite book. It’s a cheap, practically obscure science fiction paperback from the eighties. I’m not really sure what she sees in it, but the part where the heroine defeats the bad guy always makes some of that dead heaviness in her eyes float away.
When I leave her, she makes a promise about getting some sleep, and she smiles. It’s an ugly, rusty thing, but I’m used to it now.
I know the real smiles will return.
I’m still lost under the cloud of it when Sugar walks out of the bathroom, catching me changing out of my own clothes. I turn and see her standing there in my sweatshirt, hair wet, bare legs stretched out from the hem, looking extra small and extra sexy.
“Hi,” she says, like we haven’t just spent the whole day together. I don’t miss how her eyes skim over my exposed upper body.
“Hey.”
Her eyes dart from my chest to the bed, over to the French doors where the backyard is bathed in icy night. Her teeth bear down on her bottom lip, fingers tucking into the sleeves. The sweatshirt is from almost four years ago, when I was scrawny as hell, and it still engulfs her tiny frame, giving her this timid, vulnerable look that I know is both right and wrong. Sugar is tough as the blade she carries in her bag, and as delicate as those kittens in the other room. If I’m too pushy, too bossy, too much myself, she may run like hell.
The elephant in the room is that we’re alone now. Really alone, for the first time. There’s no Georgia in the next bed, or guys shouting down the dorm hall. We’re not crammed in the backseat of the Shelby, or stealing time in a classroom or the photography lab. It’s just the two of us. No restrictions. No gossipy classmates. No limitations.
From the anxious look on her face, she realizes it, too. “Should I… go?”
“Go?” I ask, eyebrows furrowing.
She gestures to my chest. “So you can change.”
“Uh,” I look down, realizing now that it might be too much to sleep in my boxers. “I can, if you want. I probably have some sweats I can—”
“No, it’s fine,” she cuts in, twisting her hair over one shoulder. “I just didn’t want to—I mean, it’s your space.”
Not really.
Truthfully, I usually sleep buck-ass naked.
When she looks at the bed again, I offer, “We don’t have to go to sleep just yet. The TV gets all the channels, or we can go to the media room. My dad has a client at Marvel, and we get all these extended cuts and everything early…” I try to read Sugar’s expression, but I can’t quite figure out what she’s thinking or what she wants. “Or maybe you’re tired? We can go to bed. Or sit with the cat some more. Or go for a swim, even.” I exhale. “We don’t have to do anything, it’s not like—”
“Bass?” she says, cutting me off.
“Yeah?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Maybe we can just hang out for a while. You know, see how things go.”
Go? There’s a chance of going? Go where? Go how? Like the backseat? Like the lab? Like the Devil’s Lair? Is sex on the table here? Because I won’t ask. I want Sugar to fuck me because she wants to, not because I’ve worn her down about it. My cock twitches in disagreement and I will it to slow the fuck down. Jesus, maybe I need a cold shower. What’s wrong with me?
Oh, right, I haven’t had sex in for-fucking-ever and this girl turns me on like nobody else.
I push both hands through my hair, feeling more out of balance than ever. “Yeah, sure.”
She climbs on the bed, giving me a peek at her ass, and wow. Okay. She did not put on my shorts. Fuck. This is fine. This is all good. Could be a sex thing. Could not be a sex thing. Either is fine. I can sleep next to that all night without my dick drilling a hole into the mattress.
Right?
She settles against the big designer pillows that always feel like they’re smothering me. “Grab the remote?” she says when she notices I haven’t moved an inch.