Page 48 of Wild Obsession

A ghost of a smile haunts his lips. “Good, I’m glad. Imean, it’s supposed to feel good. That’s kind of the point.”

“Right. Yeah.”

We lapse into a charged silence. Only the sheets cover us; Keannen’s as naked under the thin cotton as I am. My eyes trail down his chest, following the trickle of hair that disappears beneath the sheet and the tattoos wrapped around his arms and back. I now know there’s one on his leg as well, and I want nothing as much as I want to kiss my way up it and fill my mouth with him. We’re supposed to pack up and get on the road today, but maybe if we were fast…

“No,” Keannen says.

I jerk my eyes upward.

“No morning sex,” he says. “I shouldn’t have stayed here last night. I can’t be gone that long.”

He slips out of bed before I can protest, and I get one last glimpse of his ass before he throws on last night’s jeans and shirt and hoodie. Just like that, he’s cloaked in black, his body off-limits. Dread sinks into my belly as I realize how few opportunities I have left. The trip across the country comes with a timer that’s constantly ticking down in the back of my head. We’ll be on the bus a lot, and that isn’t going to afford us many chances to hook up. There’s a stop in South Dakota, but that might be it. Some motel on a flat, barren, empty stretch of I-90 might be the last chance I ever have with him.

Those thoughts send me hurtling out of bed. I throw on the briefs that ended up on the floor while Keannen ispatting his pockets to make sure his wallet and phone are still there. I round the bed, not sure what I’m planning to do, only sure I need to get in his way before he sprints out of here.

“Hey, that was pretty cool last night,” I say. “I mean, like, I enjoyed it.”

His eyebrow quirks. “Good. You should enjoy it. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

I don’t care about anyone else, I don’t say. I don’t care about anyone buthimmaking me feel likethat. It hasn’t even crossed my mind. I struggle to imagine getting back to Seattle and using my new experiences as a means to jump in bed with someone who isn’t him.

He snorts, smirking at me, then cups my cheek and draws me to his lips. It isn’t like the hot, greedy, passionate kisses last night. Those were bruises; this is a balm. He lingers against my mouth, warm, soft even, his hand cupping my cheek. When he pulls away, he thumbs over my cheek like he’s collecting my freckles to take with him.

My heart flutters despite my very best intentions.

“Last night was fun,” Keannen says.

I’m a little shaky when I respond. “Yeah, it was.”

Keannen’s smile isn’t a knife, and I’m not afraid of cutting myself against it the way I should be. He’s giving me just enough space for hope. Maybe some of the resentment has faded. Maybe he’s seen that things are different now, that we’re different. What happened in the past can staythere if we choose to leave it there.

“What happens now?” I ask.

Keannen shrugs. “We move on.”

Ice floods my chest. His smile is softer, his hand is on my cheek, yet somehow nothing has changed.

“It was fun, right?” he says. “Doesn’t need to be more than that. Maybe we’ll get another chance at our last stop, if you’re up for it.”

Somehow, I manage to say, “I am.”

Keannen smirks. “That’s my good little slut-in-training. Of course you are.”

The joke should sting, but my chest has no space for such a toothless barb. It’s too busy aching over how casually he’s dismissing this. Maybe it’s my inexperience, but I thought last night might have, I dunno,meantsomething. I thought doing something like that might have meant more than a blowie in a bathroom stall, especially when he stayed the night. But it seems Keannen can do eventhatwhile keeping up the wall that stands between us.

He slides his hand off my face and makes for the door of the hotel room. I chase after him, but when he opens the door, I can’t find the words that might make him stay. Whatever this is, it’s weird. It’s really weird. It’s a whole big tangled mess of memories and emotions and sex, and I have no idea where to begin smoothing it out.

When he slips into the hall, I let him go, just like I let him go when we were kids. He waves once and sauntersdown the hall with his hands in his pockets, casual as anything. As I stand there with my heart crumbling to dust in my chest, I wonder if this is how Keannen felt when my mom took me out of Baltimore. I’ll see him again now, but back then, I didn’t send him so much as a DM. Suddenly all of his resentment makes a lot more sense to me. Sure, I had my reasons, but Keannen didn’t know that. He had to watch me leave without a word.

Just as he’s leaving now.

I’ll have one more chance. I never thought I’d be excited to be in South Dakota, but suddenly, I can’t wait for the bus to rumble onto that barren strip of nowhere.

I BARELY HAVE TIME to shower and pack before I need to get downstairs with my bags. I have about ten minutes left to snag whatever is left over from the hotel breakfast spread, then everyone has to get ourselves and all our equipment on the bus. As high as everyone was flying last night, the exhaustion of a six-week tour pummels us today. We pack up quietly, everyone going to their separate corners when we make it onto the bus.

I place myself beside a window and watch Chicago roll away beyond the glass. The buildings shrink, bustling cityscape giving way to flat, open Midwest landmass with shocking speed. All the lights and stages and screamingcrowds disappear at our backs as the bus trundles onto the highway to take us back to real life.

Right now, that “real life” lies shrouded in fog. It should be simple. We’ve got another album to make when we get home. But what about the rest of my life? Before now, I didn’t care about being alone. I didn’t even care that much about being a virgin. I’d settled into my life, and it wasn’t a bad life by any means. Keannen has rearranged my existence into something I barely recognize, however, and I don’t know what that means for what I once considered “normal.”

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