Page 16 of Need Him Like Oxygen

A sound that was an odd mix of a laugh and a cry escaped me at that.

“And you make coffee way too fucking strong. It’s like drinking sludge.”

“Just because you need a pound of sugar in your coffee doesn’t mean mine isn’t good.”

“I got an immediate ulcer the last time I choked down a cup,” he insisted.

“Your weak stomach has nothing to do with me,” I said, realizing that the tears had disappeared, and my lip was dangerously close to curving up.

“Your knife throwing skills also need work,” he said.

“Those are fighting words,” I said, turning my head on the pillow, not realizing just how close he was until I was facing him, our noses practically brushing.

“Fine. Then as soon as you can move without something hurting, we will have a contest,” he said, cocky in his belief that he’d beat me.

“I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

“And I’ll try to pretend I don’t enjoy the fuck out of that,” he said, giving me that smile that made the corners of his eyes crinkle ever so slightly.

This Dav was easier for me to deal with. The playful, flirtatious one that I’d built up a wall against for years.

I had no defenses to the soft and sweet Dav, the one full of praise and admiration.

“Tell me one of your stories,” I demanded.

“One of my stories?” he asked.

“Right. Like you don’t know what I’m talking about. One of those stories you are always telling a crowd of people at Renzo’s house.”

“Did I ever tell you the story about when I was spending the summer with my aunt and uncle over in Pennsylvania?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted, surprised how excited I was to hear something new about his life. Especially his childhood, which he was almost as closed-lipped about as I was about my own.

“So, we were sixteen, right?” he started, slipping into the magnetic voice and cadence he always had when he was telling a story. “And we were really fucking interested in what was under a girls’ skirt.”

“Ugh,” I grumbled. Of all his stories, the ones that involved his escapades with women had always rubbed me the wrong way for reasons I didn’t care to analyze.

“Hang on with me,” he said. “Anyway, he had this basement that his parents had kind of converted into a bedroom and ‘kid space’ when my cousins became teenagers. Had two bedrooms, a bath, plus a common space with a pool table, video games, the usual shit. Had those external doors too, so we waited until his parents went to bed, then snuck some girls in.

“Turns out, my cousins each had a thing for these sisters. And, well, shit started to get hot and heavy in the common area where I was crashing on the couch. So they took the girls off into the bedrooms. And… shit was getting noisy.

“Then, like a fucking bad teen movie, I heard the creak of footsteps from above. From the parents’ bedroom, through the house, and getting close to the doors.”

“Uh oh.”

“Exactly.”

“What did you do?” I asked, knowing most of his stories featured him as the lead.

“Grabbed my phone, brought up some porn, and broadcast that shit on the main TV. Room filled with a chick getting airtight with a group of others just waiting around for their turn, jerking off. Turned that shit up loud as the door to the basement opened, then went under the covers and pretended I was having a good, late-night fap all to myself.”

“Oh, god,” I grumbled, shaking my head.

“Needless to say, my uncle rushed the fuck back up the stairs. Couldn’t look me in the face the rest of that month,” he admitted. “But my cousins had the best five minutes of their lives that night.”

“Five minutes, huh? What is that? Twice your best time?” I teased.

“What I might lack in sheet time, I more than make up for in my on my knees time.”

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