Page 67 of Tell Me Again

“Of course.” I step up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, watching over his shoulder as he stirs the beef and then lowers the heat.

“I, uh...” He leans back into me and tilts his head slightly, and I see that as an invitation to kiss him. “Mmm. I was gonna say...”

Yeah, he doesn’t say anything. But he does moan when I find that spot right at the base of his neck that’s so sensitive. And I’m discovering just how much I love to hear that sound. I suck a little harder, and my dick throbs against his ass when he moans again. God, I want him. Now.

But I can be patient.

I kiss him gently one more time and loosen my arms from around him just enough. He makes another sound that’s some combination of a whimper and groan, but then lets out a long breath and straightens up.

“You were saying?” I ask, my voice low and my lips still brushing his skin.

“I was...? Oh, right. Um, I went to the grocery store,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind that I bought a few things. The stuff for dinner and then some drinks, and a cheesecake for dessert. Just a few things since there wasn’t much here.”

I glance at the grocery bags again and at my tiny kitchen, and that feeling in my chest—the happy fluttering warmth—morphs into something tighter and not so comfortable. Fuck.

“Um, yeah, sorry, uh, I’ve been meaning to go shopping...”

It’s okay. It’s not okay, but it’s okay. Really. Fuck.

He shuts off the heat on the stove and turns around in my arms, and his hands come up to my cheeks. He’s smiling gently, but I can’t really hold his gaze.

“This is okay, right? Dinner, I mean?” he asks quietly.

“Of—of course, yeah, yeah. Th-thank you.”

He frowns a little, because, yeah, I know he wasn’t looking for a thank you. He was just trying to do something nice. But I can’t help feeling all my failures as they suddenly jump out at me. I’m fucking broke, with an empty fridge, a truck I can’t keep running, a house that’s falling apart. One angry boss or bad weekend away from being out on the streets again.

Fuck. Fuck my life.

I look down, and when he tries to draw my mouth back to his for another kiss, I pull away.

“You should know I’m broke. I guess it’s not a secret, what with my truck battery and—and my empty fridge and all that shit. I, uh, could tell you my life story—the parts you don’t know—if you want to know why I’m such a fucking failure. But, I—”

“Coop,” he cuts in, and I let out a long breath and squeeze my eyes shut. “Coop, you’re... you’re not...”

I hear him sigh quietly, and he takes my hand and threads our fingers together. God, it feels good. I want to just hold onto his hand like this forever, I think. Forget about everything else. Ah, fuck, why’d I even start this conversation?

“Coop, I don’t think you’re a failure. And I do want to know you,” he says. His voice is soft and earnest, and it’s somehow soothing. “But I really, really don’t want you to feel embarrassed or less than or anything because of material shit or money or any of that. Really. That’s not what I care about.”

He brings my hand up to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. Fuck, I love that feeling. Then he pulls me back into another hug. His lips brush my cheek.

“I care about you. I love you,” he says. “All of you. Full fridge or not.”

He’s trying to get a laugh from me, but I’m not quite there yet. Everything wants to come out right now. All the shit that I am fucking embarrassed about. All the shit that he doesn’t know, because he wasn’t here. Because he hasn’t been here. And I probably shouldn’t let it. First date days should be happy, right? But I’m a dumbass, so of course I start talking again.

“I didn’t graduate high school.”

God, saying that out loud somehow really hurts. I know it’s because school and academics and all that had been so important to my mom, and that fact—the fact that I’d only gotten partway through my sophomore year—seems like the worst thing I could possibly admit. But Josh doesn’t react other than to brush his lips across my cheek again, giving me the strength to keep going.

“My mom moved us here to White Hills when she got too sick to drive to the hospital for her treatments. I had to take care of her, and after a few months, I couldn’t do that and go to school. She didn’t realize it, she was too sick. Fuck, she’d have been so fucking disappointed in me.”

That’s it. That’s the fucking honest truth. I’d told Mel the same thing. And Josh’s reaction is predictable, I guess.

“No, man. No, she loved you. I remember that more than anything else. Your mom—”

“She didn’t know. She didn’t fucking know. I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell her either. She was too sick.” His arms tighten around me, and he doesn’t try to protest again, so I keep going. “She died just after my sixteenth birthday, and there was no money left, no savings, nothing. Everything she had went to pay her medical bills. I got kicked out of the apartment she’d been renting—and in the middle of fucking winter. If not for Mel giving me a job and Angie letting me stay at her place sometimes... And fuck, even still. I’m still fucking broke. Half the time, I barely have enough money to cover rent. I’ve got less than twenty dollars to my name right now, and—”

“Coop,” he says softly, and his lips press into my cheek again.

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