99 Percent Mine(32)

“See you later, Darce,” Tom says, walking inside with his pizza. Patty follows him, her nose turned up like a snob. I brace for the door slam, but he closes it quietly.

“Don’t come driving around here,” I say to Vince with a threat in my voice. “It pisses him off.”

Vince nods and puts a piece of gum in his mouth. “I remember him from high school, and what he was like around you. Got a little pushy with me once.” Vince seems to have surprised himself. He looks at me with a new expression. “Hey, we’ve known each other a long time.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong. Jamie was the pushy type.”

“Nope, definitely Tom. Watch out he doesn’t fall back in love with you,” Vince says in a voice that sounds like he’s joking. Words that sound serious. “You’d wreck a guy like that when you leave. See ya.”

Before I say anything, he’s getting into the car and revving the engine unnecessarily. He reverses without checking his mirror, swings back in a showy loop, and screams off. I stand there for a long moment, trying to settle myself.

How did I not notice that I have been casually screwing my male doppelg?nger? Does the whole thing count as a weird kind of masturbation?

Something about the soft sound of the front door closing bothers me. I bet he thought I’d cave in, forget Truly, and get in Vince’s car. I’ve gotten into countless black cars. He stays home. It’s what we do. If leaving were a sport, I’d be a Hall of Famer.

Back in love.

Back in love with you. Was I blind? Even dumbass Vince knew it?

My key slides into the front door like Loretta’s hand is steadying mine. I walk through the house with no thought in my head except that I need to find Tom and tell him that I’m going to do better. Be better. I’m cutting the shit.

This house feels like a tuning fork. There’s no sound, but there’s vibration in here now, a deep bass line that I feel in my stomach. Tom is standing in the kitchen with his back to me, a hand on each side of the old, deep sink. My personal life is clearly sickening.

“Sorry about that,” I say, and he jumps in surprise, hitting his head on the cupboard above him with a crack. He howls in pain.

“Shit. Sorry, sorry.” I run to him and pull his head down. I rub my hand on the top of his head. “Oh, poor Tom. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it, I was careless.” The words run together and I’m not talking about his head now. It’s a relief to be able to say it.

“Normally I can hear you walking a mile away.” Tom rolls his shoulders, agony in his voice, and when he straightens back up to his full height my hand slips to his shoulder. “Don’t sneak up like that.”

He’s leaning back on the sink now, and I’m leaning on him. He doesn’t seem to notice, lost in his private world of pain, his hand on his head. I try to push free, but his other hand tightens on my waist.

From this new perspective, I’m looking up at the curve of his throat and the heavy slab of his bicep. White perfect teeth biting into his bottom lip. Pain looks so much like pleasure. How can he be elegant despite his brute bulk? Michelangelo would be hollering for a fresh block of marble.

Me? I want my camera. And that’s something I haven’t wanted in a long, long time.

If this were my regular view, and I could stand between his knees whenever I wanted, I’d be a permanent fixture. What the fuck is wrong with Megan? A big throb of frustration goes through me. She’s making the same mistake I did. She doesn’t know what kind of heart she has. I wonder if I should try to explain it to her, somehow. And how would I do that without seeming like a psycho?

I feel the exact moment that his pain recedes and he realizes that our bodies are together. He’d step back, but he’s got nowhere to go. I’d step back, but his hand curls into a squeeze.

I’ve sat shoulder to shoulder with this kid on car trips, but we’ve never been this close face-to-face. I can see everything now, the candy-crystal facets in his eyes and the brown-sugar stubble on his jaw. He’s so delicious my throat aches.

The look he gives me makes me wonder if I’m in trouble. “I thought you were going out.”

“I wanted to come back and say I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I put my arms around his waist and hug. “You shut the door in a way that made me sad, and I wanted to tell you that I’m going to do better.”

“Do better at what? How’d I shut the door?” His other arm wraps around my shoulders. He crosses his feet behind my heels, and now his entire body is hugging me. Warm, soft, hard. I thought my mattress was heaven, but that’s before I laid myself on this person. How am I going to ever peel myself off?

I inhale his birthday-candle pheromones. I want to know what his goddamn bones smell like. Let me start down in his DNA structure and work my way back out.

I speak into his muscles. “You shut the door like you’ve just accepted that I don’t come back. I’m going to start being like you. Completely, one hundred percent honest.” I hover on the precipice and decide to try. “This is the best hug of my life.”

His heart below my cheekbone is diligent and regular, and I need it to beat forever.

“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” he agrees, amused, and I can’t see how I’m pulling my weight in this. He’s the one doing all the work. I tighten my arms and press closer. That gold-bubble feeling expands around us again. I’ve never felt this with another man. I know what this is: joy. The weight of his arms is the only thing stopping me floating off the floor. I have to tip my face back to see if he feels it, too.