Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(30)

And then, gradually, as all good things do, it subsides. It goes away, leaving only weak knees and a full-body flush in its wake.

Caleb seems reluctant to stop eating me, but he does, tilting his head up with half-lidded eyes and wet lips. He looks intoxicated—intoxicated from me, my body—which is a heady feeling. Heady as fuck. And when I look all the way down his body, I know for certain pity had nothing to do with what just happened.

He’s hard.

Hard enough to seriously tent his jeans.

For a moment, we linger like this, my hand still twined in his hair and him on his knees with his face canted up toward mine, like a sinner before God. His eyes blaze earnestly across my face, and my stomach twists as I recognize what he’s doing.

He’s committing me to memory.

I let go of his hair.

“Ireland,” he says as I bend over to grab my shorts. “Please.”

I don’t know what to make of him, this honest, passionate man who can make honest, passionate love to me and still say goodbye afterward. I don’t know what to make of Ben either, and the thought that I’ll never have the opportunity to figure them out is sharp enough to make me pull my shorts on with haste. I need to leave. Before I do something truly awkward, like cry.

Caleb stands, licking his lips like he’s licking the last of my taste off them, and renewed lust hits me low below the belly button. I ignore it and fasten my shorts.

“I’ll just go get my things,” I announce, pointlessly, and he follows me into the house and up the stairs like a puppy. A big farmer puppy with big farmer muscles and pleading green eyes.

Ugh. Why do the two of them have to be so unfairly handsome? What chance do I stand against that?

I go into the guest room and pull together my things to pack, and from behind me, Caleb says, “Ben was in the army.”

“Okay,” I say, keeping my back to him as I fold up my clothes and stuff them into my bag. “Thanks for telling me.”

“No, I—” Caleb makes that frustrated noise that tells me he’s frustrated with himself, with the way he can’t explain things the way he wants. “Ben was in Afghanistan. Four tours.”

That slows me down. I put my camera on the bed next to my bag and turn to face him. “Okay,” I say again, but curiously this time. I’m listening. Thinking of the way Ben kept so still this morning to avoid flinching at the booms of the thunder. Why he has trouble sleeping.

“I think it was bad. I mean, I know it was bad. He was in so many of the places you’d see on the news, and he knew so many people who died or were seriously injured, and I think he saw a lot of fucked-up things. He was always so sensitive…”

I make a noise at that, thinking of his cold eyes, his sneering smiles. “Ben? Sensitive?”

Caleb sighs. “Yeah. He used to get bullied a lot, as a kid, before he filled out in high school.”

“God. Why?”

Caleb shrugs. “Because kids are awful? Because his sister was older than him and already out? Because he could never hide how he felt about anything?”

I ask the obvious question. “Were you two in love as kids?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “No…and yes. We’ve always been close. He lived with his grandma growing up, and after she had to move to a home, my parents unofficially took him in. His sister had already gone off to college at that point, but she wasn’t ready to be responsible for another person, I guess.”

“So you lived together? Is that when you found out you wanted each other?”

“It was complicated, you know? It didn’t—I don’t think either of us knew until the first time we had a third person. Someone between us.”

“When was that?” I sit on the bed now, reluctantly enthralled. “High school?”

“A cheerleader named Serena.” A faint smile blooms on Caleb’s face. “She had a crush on both of us, and we both liked her. For a while, I thought we were going to fight for her, but then we all got drunk at a field party and the three of us ended up together in the back of my truck. We did that a few more times, until she started dating a basketball player instead.”

“And you never…” I wave with my hand to indicate what I mean. “Never just the two of you?”

“We did,” Caleb admits softly. His ears go red, but he meets my eyes so I’ll know he’s being completely honest. “Just the two of us. The summer after graduation.”

“And?”

“It was still fun,” he replies, with an almost shy smile, as if even the word fun is impossibly dirty, “but there was something about being a three that fit us better than being a two.”

I think about that for a moment. Think about how electric it felt last night to be between the two of them, because it was electric and somehow also comforting—like nothing I’ve ever felt before in bed. As if between the three of us we could handle anything, we could explore everywhere, our shared strength and energy creating a web of safety and affection all around us.

I look out the window at the barn, where the three of us fooled around last night, wondering if maybe I fit better in a three than a two myself. Or is it just Caleb and Ben? Even if I left here and found another set of boys to play with, would it be the same?

I sigh. How could it be the same? When it’s them I want so much, not the number?