Page 47 of Meet Me in the Blue

“I like sex. But I love you.”

His chuckle ruffled my hair. “Love you too.”

“I don’t need you to make me any promises.”

“Alright.” He skated a gentle palm down my back, and I yawned.

The smell of Rook’s skin permeated the air, but somewhere in the background I heard the jingle of Maribelle’s collar. The sound of reality biding its time. The pain I’d evaded snuck around my heart with every beat of my pulse, and my mother’s voice whispered in my ear,he’s gone. He’s gone.I closed my eyes, and focused on Rook’s touch, on the heat of his body, like bright sunlight, and it was safe and comfortable and mine.

ROOK

“UGH, YOU’RE LIKE ANoctopus,” I groaned and tried to untangle myself from Luka’s hold. The small tent was overheated, sunlight bleeding through the hole in the rainfly, the humidity heavier than it had been the day before. Sweat beaded across my forehead, on my back, and across Luka’s chest. “Come on, man. I’m dying.”

He didn’t budge, muttering something about being cold, while his sleeping bag stuck to the side of his damp face. I suppressed a laugh when he squeezed me tighter, snuggling against my chest. I stole the opportunity to count the new freckles on his nose, to be close to him even if I was melting from the inside out. This was the last chance we’d have to camp before school started, the last chance we’d have like this before we started ninth grade.

High school.

It made my stomach feel empty. I was probably stupid for being worried, and I thought maybe other kids would be excited about starting a new grade and a new school, but it made me sad. Things were shifting, moving forward, and I wasn’t ready. Luka had started to put some distance between us lately. He had always been affectionate, and I never minded it. It was just our way. But some of our friends gave us crap, him more so than me, and recently, he’d started to pull away. Even when we were in private, he’d choose to sit on the floor instead of next to me on the bed or couch when we watched movies or went over our next D&D campaign. Maybe it was part of growing up. Maybe he didn’t need me like he used to. I figured when he finally woke up, he’d be embarrassed about clinging to me like a koala, but if this was my last chance to hang out with him like this, sweating my balls off or not, I’d take it.

Luka stirred again, groaning, and wiping his wet strands of hair from his forehead. “Are you awake?” I asked and laughed when one of his eyes popped open.

My humor didn’t last long. As soon as he realized he was strapped to me like a backpack he rolled away immediately and sat up. “Shit, sorry. I…” He stared down at his knobby knees and shook his head like he was trying to shake away the sleep from his eyes. Luka cleared his throat, his cheeks red as he stood abruptly. “I gotta take a piss.”

He was out of the tent before I could even tease him about the way his hair was sticking up on the back of his head. Things were definitely different, and as the cool air from outside washed over me, stealing the remaining heat Luka had left behind, I shivered.

• ••

My alarm on my phone went off around five-thirty, and I expected Luka to be stuck to me like a sucker fish like he used to do when we were kids, but his side of the bed was empty and cold. I stood on wobbly legs, rubbing my bleary eyes with my fists, and yawned. I grabbed my sweats from the floor and pulled my phone from the pocket, silencing the alarm. Half asleep, I shuffled and stumbled through getting dressed, remembering at the last minute, the shirt I’d had on last night was a lost cause, and tossed it. I didn’t bother with getting a clean shirt, too worried about Luka. The kitchen light streamed down the hallway, Maribelle’s collar jingling and I followed the sound. I found Luka sitting at the kitchen table in a pair of my sweats, with Belle’s head at his feet. I would have smiled at the fact he’d helped himself to my clothes, and that his hair was sticking every which way like the old days, but Luka’s eyes were swollen and red like he hadn’t slept at all.

“Hey,” I whispered and bent down, kissing his temple. “You didn’t sleep, did you?”

“About an hour.” His smile was weary. “You have to work today?”

“I’m going to text Charity, if my dad hasn’t already, and tell her what’s going on. I don’t have any inductions scheduled today, and it’s not a big deal to move appointments around.”

“Inductions?”

“Scheduled deliveries. Babies and all that.” I gave him a crooked smile, and it cracked through the sorrow, his lips lifting up at the corners.

“And all that. Sounds fun.” Luka raised his brows with a half-hearted effort, and I sat down next to him, pressing the sides of our thighs together. I stared at the intricate ink on his arm, the details of our childhood etched with permanence into his skin. It was beautiful. I wanted to reach out and touch it again, but I didn’t know if he’d want me to. Luka beat me to it though and took my hand in his. He laced our fingers together, keeping his eyes on the table. “Are we… I mean, are you freaking out about last night?”

“No. Are you?”

“No.” He lifted his eyes, his thumb rubbing deep, nervous circles into my palm. “I think I’m processing… all of it.”

Everything that happened last night lingered against my skin, phantom touches and kisses on my lips and jaw. I could feel every mark, every moment, and I didn’t regret anything. I’d gone so long without understanding how it could be, treading water in a gray and empty sea, getting momentary glimpses of light, but nothing I could ever grab ahold of, nothing I ever wanted. And then Luka. Luka, whom I’d known and loved, he broke through all the gray and showed me how amazing touch could feel, how a kiss was supposed to taste, how losing yourself and letting go wasn’t a perfunctory obligation, but vivid fireworks in a clear sky.

“A lot has happened.”

“I’m trying to separate it all in my head. The good and the bad, and it all feels like one big fucking mess, and I don’t want to feel that way, not about you.” He swallowed, his voice gruff as he spoke. “Not about us.”

Maribelle moved under the table, her tail thumping against the floor as she stretched her head across both mine and Luka’s legs. I ran my fingers through her curls as I worried about what to say, or that I might say the wrong thing and push him away. Last night had happened fast, and it was unexpected, but it was everything I hadn’t known I needed. Every sexual experience I’d had before last night seemed like a lie. I thought being intimate came with the baggage of a relationship, when in reality the one thing that had always been missing, I’d already had with Luka. We’d been intimate in a way that hadn’t ever been related to sex, and it had taken me forever to get it. All those years and memories, it was a turn on. His smile, I knew it like the back of my hand, his smell, his laugh, these were all things that made him attractive to me, made me want to open up and share myself with him. I was safe with Luka. There wasn’t another person in this world who knew me better than him, and I wanted him in every way. It was foreign, this feeling of desire, and I had to find a way to balance it with what Luka needed from me now. His father had died, and the last thing I wanted was to become another complication in his life.

“Luka, you can’t help how you feel. I get it, you need time to figure out if this is what you want. You’re grieving, and I don’t want to be another thing you have to worry about.”

“What? No… You’re the only good thing in this whole situation. I can’t go backward.”

“I can’t either.”

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