Even though I don’t remember falling asleep, I jerk awake in the middle of the night.
I’m in Zach’s bed, naked and feeling like a noodle, lumpy. The room’s dark, the only light from the bathroom.
There’s a sheet over me, courtesy of Zach, I think. But he’s not by my side.
I look around and find him in his armchair by the big glass window. The night’s dark with bright stars and I guess it’s way past midnight.
“Hey,” I whisper, sitting up and clutching the sheet at my breasts. I can still feel him between my legs, him and his body.
Zach’s naked too, the muscles silhouetted by the silver moonlight. His thighs are wide, and his elbows are resting on them as his gaze rests on me.
Actually, no.
His gaze isn’t resting. There’s turbulence in it, a strange intensity that shines brighter in the near-darkness.
“You love me,” he says.
My languid, warm, thoroughly-fucked body feels cold at his words. Cold and dead and numb.
“What?”
“You. Love me,” he repeats. Like, he’s trying to taste the words in his mouth, roll them around between his teeth and tongue.
What comes out is not something he likes.
His frame gets angrier. His elbows dig even harder in his thighs.
I feel like a criminal, the way he’s watching me. Someone who’s committed a crime.
I don’t know where I get the courage from but I raise my chin and fist the sheet on my chest, nodding. “Yes.”
I swear I can hear the gnashing of his teeth. I can hear the grind. The angry rush of his blood.
“Since when?”
My heart should be racing right about now. I should be panicky. I should be trying to salvage this. But after the initial icy blast of shock, all I feel is relief.
He knows now.
It’s out there. My horrible secret, or at least one of them, is out of my system.
“Since forever,” I reply. “Probably since the first day I saw you.”
I watch the impact of my words on his body. A deep breath. Flaring nostrils. The tautness of his veins and clench of his muscles.
Before he can grill me some more, I ask, “How’d you know?”
“You’re not very good at hiding things.”
That’s when I realize that I might have said it out loud. The thought that made me climax and lulled me into sleep.
God, I’m stupid.
“Actually, I’m pretty good at hiding. It’s just you I can’t hide from.”
“And isn’t that the real fucking tragedy?”
My sinuses sting.