In the Middle of Somewhere (Middle of Somewhere, #1)(97)

Absently, I realize that means that we just had sex without a condom and, from Rex’s sudden stillness and intake of breath, he must suddenly realize it as well.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking—I didn’t.”

I should feel a cold rush of fear, but for some reason it doesn’t come.

“Are you… I mean, are you clean?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he says, “but I didn’t mean to—”

“Shh,” I say. “You felt amazing.”

He relaxes beneath me.

“I’m clean too,” I assure him, and he picks up my hand and kisses my palm.

“I still didn’t mean to—without asking you.”

All I feel is relieved and shaky with pleasure.

I lean down and kiss Rex softly, hoping to show him that I’m okay with it—more than okay. He kisses my mouth, then my eyelids, and then he maneuvers me so that I’m lying on my side, back to his chest as he slowly slides out of me.

I feel his hesitation, so I take his hand and bring it to my opening. He slides his fingers inside me, feeling his come leaking out of me. I’m sure it won’t feel so nice in the morning, but right now, the thought that Rex will stay inside me all night feels like a warm blanket.

“Oh Jesus,” Rex murmurs. He snugs his hips up tight against my ass, gathering me close to him with his arm, and buries his face in my neck.

I have the brief, absent thought that I’ll never be able to fall asleep with him holding me so tight, and then the darkness swallows me.





Chapter 13


November



“FUCK, FUCK, f*ck!” I say as a thin tendril of smoke snakes toward me. By the time I turn back to the stove from jerking the charred toast out the toaster oven, the eggs have congealed in the pan. They don’t smell burned, though, so I scrape them onto the plate. I put more bread in the toaster, tipping the burned pieces in the trash. I hate wasting food, but no way am I serving Rex charcoal. Aside from the fact that it’s pretty embarrassing to have an advanced degree and not be able to apply heat to bread evenly, it’s not really the message of comfort I want to send.

Granted, maybe cooking isn’t the best medium for the message, but I wanted to do something for Rex to make up for our disastrous date last night. The toaster oven dings and I grab the toast, miraculously unburned, and scrape some butter onto it.

“What’re you doing?”

Rex appears in the doorway just as I’m about to carry the plate to him, wearing a pair of sweatpants and nothing else. He looks warm and sleepy.

“I was going for breakfast in bed, but….”

“Sorry,” Rex smiles. “Want me to go get back in bed?”

What a question. He looks positively edible himself, with his powerful shoulders braced in the doorway and the muscular expanse of his chest and stomach taking up the whole space between. His hair is messy and his stubble makes his full mouth look amazing.

“Hell yes,” I say, but in the time I’ve been gawking at him, he’s already started to move toward me. He sits on one of the stools at the counter and pulls me to stand between his legs. He looks serious, like he’s trying really hard not to bring up last night’s confession about his dyslexia but badly wants to. Then he pulls the plate toward him and his expression softens.

“I can’t believe you cooked,” he says, picking up his fork while keeping one arm twined around my waist. “Here, share with me.” Oh, right. I only made one plate.

He forks some egg into his mouth, still looking at me fondly. Then his expression becomes studiedly neutral. He chews slowly. Swallows. Tries to smile. He puts down the fork and picks up the toast, looking relieved as he takes a bite. He puts the toast down and pats my back.

“It okay?” I say.

Rex nods, but doesn’t open his mouth. He’s patting my back like you would an elderly relation.

“Rex,” I say. “Is it bad?”

He coughs a little and clears his throat.

“It was a real sweet thought, Daniel,” he says. He kisses my cheek and pulls the plate closer to him with a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. He takes another bite of egg, but before he gets it to his mouth he sighs and looks at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Um,” he says.

“What the hell?” I say, and I grab the fork from his hand and eat the eggs.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

“Fuck!” I say. “That tastes like death. Why the hell did you eat it?”

Rex starts chuckling.

I take a bite of the toast—that, at least, can’t be bad. It’s not even burned.

Wrong.

The toast tastes like I pulled it out of a burning building, the congealed butter only adding to the gross consistency. I look at Rex desperately. How can eggs and toast possibly taste that bad?

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever tasted,” Rex says, laughing, but he pulls me to him and kisses me, so it barely even stings.

“Ew, get away,” I say. “You taste like death eggs and fire toast!”

Rex laughs deeply and buries his face in my hair.




THE NEXT week, Rex and I hang out at his house a lot. It’s this weird feeling I haven’t had since I was a kid: this sense that I want to spend all my time with someone. The last time I felt it was with Corey Appleton in seventh grade. I was captivated by him, just wanted to watch him do… whatever. The way he sharpened his pencil seemed to suggest something deeply contemplative about his character and his choice of apple juice over soda at lunch indicated a sweetness that pulled me in. Of course, when I groped him after school, sure that his companionable arm around my shoulder was a message, my heart pounding so hard with hope that I thought I might pass out, I found that nothing about his pencil-sharpening gestures or his choice of beverages had indicated shit. There was nothing sweet about the way he shoved me against the brick and definitely nothing contemplative about the way he told everyone at school what I did.