But I can’t.
Not when he — the hurricane — practically looks like his life depends on my answer — the feather. When it looks like he’ll snuff out, his fire, the eye of his storm, if I don’t let him blow me away.
If I don’t let him crumple me into pieces.
“So you’re asking for your friend then?” I ask, my skin coarse with goosebumps.
His jaw clenches. Hard. “Yeah.”
I feel that force in my belly. “And if I told you that someone had?”
His jaw clenches again. Onlyharder. “Then you’d be signing his death sentence.”
This time I feel that violence in my chest. “You’d k-kill someone just for touching me?”
I don’t know why I ask that when I already know.
He not only told me but showed me with Brad the other night.
“For touching what belongs to my best friend,” he tells me.
Which I do.
I do belong to his best friend.
He’s the love of my life.
And so that’s the intention I reply to him with, for his best friend, but why does it feel like I’m also telling thisto him.
“No. No one has touched me.”
His Adam’s apple jerks with a thick swallow.
“I’m in the same condition as he left me in,” I continue and his eyes flash. “For your best friend.”
And then I step up to him.
I lick my lips, drawing his gaze down to my mouth as I say, “Now that you have your answer, I want you to wait here.”
His eyes snap up and he frowns.
But he doesn’t say a word and I have a feeling that he can’t.
That me still being untouched for his best friend is somehow a big fucking relief for him. So big that he can’t form words. He’s slightly dizzy.
Good.
I don’t want him to talk anyway.
“I’m going to go change into something appropriate. Something more suitable for company. Especially the company of my ex-boyfriend’spervyex-best friend. And then when I come back out, we’re going to watch a movie, you and me.”
At this, he does speak. “What?”
I smile up at him. A small but confident smile. “Yeah, I’m thinkingTitanic.”
He looks horrified. “What?”
I smile wider. “Because I think I will drench you in my tears after all.”