Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(30)

“Of course.” His hand came up and cupped my face. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Topher. This may be a mistake, but it’s not your fault it happened.”

“It’s at least partly my fault,” I said firmly. “I could have stopped. I knew I should have stopped. I decided not to. Don’t try to make me a victim here.”

“No.” He closed his eyes, looking unspeakably tired. “No, there’s blame to go around, I guess. I’m certainly no victim, either.”

Even now, looking weary and drawn, he was beautiful. His hand on my face felt good, and I turned into it, nuzzled his palm, enjoying the moment of tenderness.

Kissed it.

His eyes opened at that. “I still don’t know what to do right this minute,” he murmured.

I swallowed hard, wondering if it was wise to make myself any more vulnerable. But that was already a done deal, so why not?

“Do you . . . do you think you could hold me while we get some sleep? Deal with the rest tomorrow?”

His face tightened, nearly a wince, but he whispered, “Of course,” and drew the down comforter up over both of us. I gave him my back, and his arms closed around me, his body spooning against mine.

Jesus, I was sore. I closed my eyes with a tired sigh and tried to feel warm again.

Before I fell asleep, the back of my neck grew wet. I laced my fingers with his and squeezed, and his arms tightened around me as he grieved over the mistake we’d made.





Floating down the river with you

I could tell there would be trouble ahead

But it felt so good next to you

That I risked it

I wished for it

—Casey Stratton, “Cruel Hand of Fate”

How was it possible for everything to feel great and wrong in the same exact instant?

I woke up with Brendan pressed against me in a bed I had no business being in. His arms around me felt good, even though my mind took up the obsessive chant, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I knew what I had to do. I had to find some way to make us not hate ourselves or each other for what we’d done. If we slunk away, miserable and ashamed, the wrong was all we would remember for the rest of our lives. We would never remember the kindness and gentle affection of those first few weeks of slowly building friendship that had sprung up between us, and suddenly it seemed imperative that we not lose sight of that. We, together, were more than this one mistake. Yes, this was a category-5 shitstorm, a disaster of behemoth proportions, and it was going to leave a metric f*ck-ton of emotional debris scattered in its wake, but before everything had gone off the rails, there had been some good, too, and I didn’t want that obliterated by the bad. I already had too many relationships in my life where what hurt about them far outweighed anything good.

Or maybe I just decided I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. In for a penny, in for a pound. Choose your cliché. I’d take what I could get while I could get it.

Either way, instead of trying to make a discreet exit that would have allowed us to try to pretend nothing had ever happened until the awkwardness became unbearable and we each ran away, I rolled over and kissed him.

He shuddered awake, startling. He didn’t pull away, but neither did he respond for a moment. Then he sighed, and his hand grasped my arm and his lips softened against mine. Just for a moment. It wasn’t chaste, but it wasn’t passionate either. Sad, rather. Needy. Confused. Seeking comfort.

Then he drew back and searched my face, those red-rimmed eyes concerned.

“Are you okay?”

The tender brush of his knuckles against my cheek nearly undid me. I nodded.

“Yeah. I’m okay. You?”

He huffed a bitter laugh, rolling onto his back and covering his eyes with his hand.

“I don’t know, Topher. I don’t know why I’m lying here when I know this can’t happen again. I should be up and running away and I’m not. I should be telling you all the reasons you should get as far away from me as humanly possible for your own sake, and I’m not. What do you do when you discover you’re not the person you thought you were, when you realize you’re far, far worse? Horrible, even?”

“You’re not horrible,” I murmured, hugging myself and curling up a bit because for some reason it was f*cking cold in this room. Was the air conditioning set to “meat locker” or something? “If you were horrible, you wouldn’t feel bad right now.”

He sighed and rocked his head to the left, meeting my eyes. “I do feel bad. And yet that isn’t stopping me from . . .”

“Relishing the memory?” I supplied for him, trying for perky. I hoped he did. That’s what I’d wanted when I’d kissed him awake, to cement the good. I’d wanted to salvage one positive feeling out of the wreckage. Something we could look back on someday and say, It was almost worth it.

“Wanting it again,” he rasped, drawing in on himself when my eyes widened. “Now tell me I’m not horrible.”

. . . Oh.

I hadn’t let myself even consider that possibility. It wasn’t that I didn’t—or wouldn’t—want it, so much as I’d never even thought of it, certain that after this one time, we’d try to put the pieces of our worlds back to rights and repair the damage as best we could.

I shouldn’t say yes, and I didn’t want to say no, which left me wondering what I could say. But it was okay. I realized after a moment that it hadn’t been a request. He made no effort to go for another round. He was just explaining another part of what made this so awful and confusing for him.