Hopeless(36)

“Then why do you let him do it?” he says, eyeing me sharply. We’re in a compromising position right now, facing each other on the same bed. The way he’s staring at me and dropping his eyes to my lips prompts me to roll onto my back again. I don’t know if he feels the same, but he rolls onto his back, too.

“It’s complicated.”

“You don’t have to explain,” he says. “I was just curious. It’s really not my business.”

I tuck my hands behind my head and look up at the stars that I’ve counted more times than I can count. I’ve been in this bed with Holder longer than I’ve probably been in this bed with any boy, and it occurs to me that I haven’t felt the need to count a single star.

“Have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”

“Yep,” he says. “But I hope you aren’t about to ask for details, because I don’t go there.”

I shake my head. “That’s not why I’m asking.” I pause for a few seconds, wanting to word things the right way. “When you kissed her, what did you feel?”

He pauses for a moment, probably thinking this is a trick question. “You want honesty, right?” he asks.

“That’s all I ever want.”

I can see him smile out of the corner of my eyes. “Alright then. I guess I felt…horny.”

I try to appear unaffected, hearing that word come out of his mouth, but...wow. I cross my legs, hoping it’ll help minimize the hot flashes racing through me. “So you get the butterflies and the sweaty palms and the rapid heartbeat and all that?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. Not with every girl I’ve been with, but most of them.”

I angle my head in his direction, trying not to analyze the way that sentence came out. He turns his head toward me and grins.

“There weren’t that many.” He smiles and his dimple is even cuter close up. For a moment, I get lost in it. “What’s your point?”

I bring my eyes back to his, briefly, then face the ceiling again. “My point is that I don’t. I don’t feel any of that. When I make out with guys, I don’t feel anything at all. Just numbness. So sometimes I let Grayson do what he does to me, not because I enjoy it, but because I like not feeling anything at all.” He doesn’t respond and his silence makes me uncomfortable. I can’t help but wonder if he’s mentally labeling me as crazy. “I know it doesn’t make sense, and no, I’m not a lesbian. I’ve just never been attracted to anyone before you and I don’t know why.”

As soon as I say it, he darts his head toward me at the same second I squeeze my eyes shut and throw my arm over my face. I can’t believe I just admitted, out loud, that I’m attracted to him. I could die right now and it wouldn’t be soon enough.

I feel the bed shift and he encompasses my wrist with his hand and removes my arm from over my eyes. I reluctantly open them and he’s propped up on his hand, smiling at me. “You’re attracted to me?”

“Oh, God,” I groan. “That’s the last thing you need for your ego.”

“That’s probably true,” he laughs. “Better hurry up and insult me before my ego gets as big as yours.”

“You need a hair cut,” I blurt out. “Really bad. It gets in your eyes and you squint and you’re constantly moving it out of the way like you’re Justin Bieber and it’s really distracting.”

He fingers his hair with his hand and frowns, then falls back onto the bed. “Man. That really hurt. It seems like you’ve thought that one out for a while.”

“Just since Monday,” I admit.

“You met me on Monday. So technically, you’ve been thinking about how much you hate my hair since the moment we met?”

“Not every moment.”

He’s quiet for a minute, then grins again. “I can’t believe you think I’m hot.”

“Shut up.”

“You probably faked passing out the other day, just so you could be carried in my hot, sweaty, manly arms.”

“Shut up.”

“I’ll bet you fantasize about me at night, right here in this bed.”

“Shut up, Holder.”

“You probably even…”

I reach over and clamp my hand over his mouth. “You’re way hotter when you aren’t speaking.”

When he finally shuts his mouth, I remove my hand and put it back behind my head. Again, we both go a while without speaking. He’s probably silently gloating in the fact that I admitted I’m attracted to him, while I’m silently cringing that he’s now privy to that knowledge.