“Daddy gets up early. I should go,” I said. Weston nodded and withdrew his arms. His face looked tortured, heart being pulled in opposite directions until it tore him apart.
“Well, when I see you again, I’ll be eighteen,” I told him. Unlike West, I wasn’t mired in a nightmare of conflict. I felt liberated, as if Weston’s kiss had spread vitality to the far reaches of my body. I might be facing a life an ocean away, but this feeling, I could carry me with me wherever I’d go.
My last vision of him was standing in my kitchen, sun streaming in behind him, lighting up that stoic silhouette again, this time in gold.
“Crosby, don’t wait for me. Go live your life,” he told me as I stepped onto the first stair.
I certainly planned on it. Art, language, culture, and food, I’d treasure it all. But my heart, that would stay here. Tucked away in the palm of his hand. Milan was my destination, but Weston Abernathy was my destiny.
4
Weston
I’d written and deleted the email twenty times. I didn’t want to stalk the girl. In fact, I was pretty sure she was doing better than fine without me, soaking up everything Italy had to offer her. But another part of me was terrified she’d think that the kiss had been meaningless to me—that I’d stolen the first sweetness from her mouth for nothing more than a bedpost notch, so to speak. That couldn’t be further from the truth. To me, Crosby Dashen was everything I’d ever dreamed of in a woman and more. Independent, smart, a risk-taker who constantly challenged me, made me laugh, and drew me near like a moth to a flame. And now she was more than five thousand miles away from me.
Dear Crosby,
Hartford misses you and so does your family…
Dear Crosby,
Don’t hold back, live your life to the fullest…
Who did I think I was? Deepak Chopra? If anyone knew how to follow their dreams, it was Crosby. Of course, I wanted her to be happy and pursue her passion, but the hair on the back of my neck bristled and my hands balled into fists at the thought of Italian men—any men—hitting on her. I had a mind to jump on the next plane and physically drag her out of whatever piazza she was currently standing in, looking adorable in her flowy dresses and flat sandals, strawberry hair swept into a loose braid, those layered gold necklaces she always wore accenting her décolleté and disappearing in the shadow between her breasts…
Jesus. I needed to get a grip on myself. I couldn’t write her. I couldn’t fucking do it. I’d keep my promise to Asa and leave his little sister alone. But just thinking of her lit a fire in my blood. Instead of writing an email, what I really wanted to do was stroke my dick.
My parents had swung for a private dorm room, which was a blessing. Otherwise, I’d have been rooming with Asa and stroking off to visions of his little sister. Their relationship—hell, our relationship—held me back more than anything else. The romantic in me would be writing Crosby daily love letters if we weren’t practically family. The untamed animal in me would be halfway across the ocean to claim her. But I held it all in for the sake of the family. I knew Jim Dashen was going through a health scare, and I wasn’t about to burden the family with my out-of-control crush—okay, obsession. But when Asa went to his parents’ for dinner, I hung on every word of his recounting for tidbits about Crosby. Whenever I was in his dorm room, I’d unpin the bright postcards of statues and cathedrals from his corkboard, turn them over, and savor Crosby’s short and cheerful words.
But sometimes it seemed like the only way to get her out of my mind was to reimagine our kiss, her sweet tongue in my mouth, her perfect form pressed to mine.
I stepped under the shower and let the water pound on my back. My cock strained against my belly just from imagining her perfect pink lips. Crosby was small in stature with glorious curves. She had a gorgeous ass and succulent tits that had seemed to appear overnight in high school. She went from wearing one-pieces at the pool in the summer to the hottest bikini-clad girl in all of Hartford. Those days at the pool had been absolute torture. My cock jumped at the memory of her full breasts straining against the hot-pink triangles of her bikini top. How I longed to hold her in my arms in the water and crush her mouth to mine, make her tongue submit to my rhythm. Slide that triangle of fluorescent cloth to the side and flick my tongue across her sensitive nipple. Suck it into my mouth and gently increase the suction until Crosby moaned and fed me the other one. I imagined her riding her sex up and down my leg, whimpering, moaning, and begging me to please put my cock in her.