Collared(3)

His eyes are still closed, but his jaw relaxes a little. “This beast known as the Internet and morbid curiosity.”

His eyes open a second later, right before he gently shifts me off of his lap and slides off the mattress. He snags his jeans from the lampshade and pulls them on. I know I tore off a pair of boxers earlier, but who knows where they landed.

“How can you be that restrained?” I flail my hands at him right before he roams his room, rounding up his shirt and my clothes, which had wound up just about everywhere except for dangling from the ceiling fan. “I’m naked, in your bed, practically begging you to make love to me again, and you’re pulling on your shirt.”

He drops the pile of my clothes in my lap but twirls my white cotton panties in my face. I grab them but throw them into the rest of my pile. I’m not ready to get dressed. I’m ready for something else.

“I’m this restrained because I happen to really, really like making love to you and I’d like to continue doing it.” He cups my chin when I continue to sulk in his bed, and his thumb traces the seam of my lips. He isn’t making it any easier to crawl out of his bed and get dressed. “I also happen to know that’s not going to be an option if you get home past curfew after leaving my house.”

His hand drops, and he rolls the blankets down to the foot of the bed like he’s hoping that will coax me out. Torrin’s sheets started out navy blue years ago but are more periwinkle in color now after being washed a thousand times. They’re soft though, and they smell like him. Why would I want to leave his bed? Ever?

When he sees I’m still not moving, he holds his phone up in my direction and points at the time. I’m already three minutes late. If I stall for another three, my dad will come marching over here and pound down Torrin’s flimsy bedroom door, and I know Torrin’s right—he probably would wind up under a pile of lye if my dad found us the way we are now. That’s what finally pries me out of his bed.

“You’ve got the restraint of a priest,” I mutter as I slide on my underwear.

“Okay, talking about priests after what we just did feels all kinds of weird.” He’d been about to throw on his soccer flats but stopped when I started dressing. He’s watching me, smiling again, but this one’s crooked.

When I slip into my bra, I go a little more slowly than usual. When I slide my hair over one shoulder before fastening the bra at my back, he swallows.

“Oh please, like you’re the good little Catholic boy who was saving himself for marriage.” My eyes trace back to his bed where I can still see him hovering above me, all of his muscles slicing through his skin as he restrained himself, moving slowly so he wouldn’t hurt me. The image makes me wish I was taking my clothes off instead of putting them back on.

“Hey, I’ve been at Sunday mass every week for the past seventeen years of my life.”

I make myself look away from his bed. It’s not like that was our last time in it. There’s tomorrow. And the day after that. And every one after that too. We have time. “Only because you’d have to answer to your mom if you didn’t show up.”

After I wiggle into my skirt, Torrin snags my old Cons from his floor and crouches beside my feet to tie them on while I wrestle into my shirt. “Details.” When he’s done tying the second one, he kisses the outside of my thigh and grabs my hand. “We’ve got to hustle.”

I know we do. I can practically feel my spidey senses going off. If Dad isn’t already rounding our front gate, he’s a minute away from it. I follow Torrin into the hall and jog down the stairs with him.

Unlike his bedroom, which is relatively tidy for a seventeen-year-old guy’s, the rest of the house is kind of messy. Cluttered. Six months past being in need of a deep cleaning. I know he’s embarrassed to have me over—that’s why we usually spend most of our time at my place or somewhere else—but after the heated making-out-against-the-wall fiasco last week, Torrin’s been banned from my place. Indefinitely.

I’m not embarrassed to be here though. Not ever. His house wasn’t always like this. Things started to change after his dad died five years ago and his mom had to take on two jobs. Torrin’s dad was kind of the anchor of the family, and once he was gone, it seemed like everyone and everything just kind of floated off in different directions.

We’re almost down the stairs, and I want to stop and tell him how much I love him and how I could never be embarrassed by anything when it comes to him and how I can’t imagine a better place than his bed for our first time, but we’re both startled by the sound of something shattering from somewhere in the kitchen.

I’m pretty sure I know what it is and who’s responsible for the glass—a.k.a. beer bottle—shattering, but Torrin has to check. His little brother is upstairs asleep, and even though he’s the middle brother, Torrin has stepped into the role of man of the house as best as he can. They’re big shoes to fill. Impossible shoes to fill if you ask Torrin.

Half of the ceiling lights are burnt out in the kitchen, but it’s impossible not to see what’s going on. I’ve witnessed this scene so many times I’ve committed it to memory. It’s one of the reasons my parents don’t like me hanging out at the Costigans’.

Everyone took it hard when Mr. Costigan was killed, but Torrin’s older brother took it the hardest. Probably because he was the reason why Mr. Costigan was out late that night. He never would have been in the middle of that crosswalk when Sherry Gates—whose blood alcohol level was point three—went blasting through it if Caden had been home when he said he’d be home.