Page 79 of I Did Something Bad
“Nope. No villages, nothing nature-y. And god, definitely nowhere quiet. I like cities. The bigger, the better.” I study him more closely. “Is this going to be a deal-breaker?”
“Khin,” he says through a laugh. The hand on my back sprawls out so he can draw me closer to him. When I throw one leg across his, he makes a grunting sound. Recomposing himself, he says, “Nothingwould be a deal-breaker. No villages.”
“Is that what you want?”
“Huh?”
I hitch a shoulder. “Quiet. Is that what you want? Do you want to move somewhere quiet? Do quiet things?”
“Honestly?” His hand resumes drawing horizontal lines on my skin. “I… don’t know.SometimesI think it’s what I want.”
He doesn’t know what he wants,May had said. Truthfully, a part ofme is glad to see she was right. That makes this easier. I can’t break his heart because no one, including me, can even have it in the first place.
“But my parents live here,” Tyler goes on. “And I have to look after them, and after Jess, and then there’s also May. I can’t just unplug and go be a hermit for the rest of my life.”
“Right,” I say.
“Hey,” he says, shifting in response to my own mood shift. “Whatisgoing on here? Not that I’m necessarily complaining,” he hurries to clarify. “But… why are we doing this? Will this not…” He winces before he speaks again. “Make things worse in the end? Harder?”
I smile, the tears in my eyes thickening. “We can pretend for a night, can’t we? Besides, we never know what’s going to happen in life, right? So whenever you have something wonderful, you should make the most of your time with it. And you, Tyler Tun, asexasperatingas you might be from time to time—” I twist my body and hold his face in both hands. “Also happen to be the most wonderful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
And I will keep you safe,I silently think, right beforeIkisshimfirst this time. Soft mouth that betrays far too quickly and easily just how soft his core also is. The same mouth that says things like,Do you have any idea how much I want to kiss you right now?andI’ve got youover and over until you believe it, and belongs to a good man who does way, way more than simply talk the talk.
Do you have any idea how much trouble your mouth could cause?I want to ask.Do you have any idea how much trouble it’s already caused?
Because look at us now, touching and kissing like the other is the first and only person we’ve ever done this with. Then again, I suppose in some ways it is. Because it’s never been like this, not for me. I don’t think it has for him either. Everywhere his fingertips make contact with my skin melts me like a blowtorch melting sugar.
Our first kiss had been fast and hungry, like we didn’t know whether we’d ever get to do that again, two kids quickly sneaking one in while no one was around. This one, though—this one feels like the rest of the world no longer exists outside of this apartment, and now we get to take our sweet, sweet time doing whatever we want for as long as we want. It’s just us. It’s just us, and god what I would give to have it be this way forever.
I ignore how hard he feels, how wet I already am. We pretend not to hear the moans that sneak out of our throats. I cannot have—will never have—all of him, but when it comes to Tyler, having even a specifically measured, delicious increment feels like having the world.Maybe,I think,it’s better that I can’t have him wholly; love that big could ruin me for the rest of my life.
I force myself to savor this moment, memorizing how even though he still smells like pine trees, he tastes like red bean and egg tart and chocolate—and also mint and deep laughter and making out late into the night and every single splendid thing I didn’t even know I was looking for, which shouldn’t make sense, but with him, it does. Of course with him, it does.
You,I think as I nip on his bottom lip, the act drawing a low groan out of him.Always you.
“I want to take you out on a date,” he says after the most delicious kiss of my life.
I smile even though hearing that just makes it all hurt more. “Where? Going to whisk me away to Paris on your private jet?”
He rolls his eyes. “Okay, I get it, my private jet and I are single-handedly responsible for global warming.”
“Glad to have it on the record.”
Shaking his head, he buries a kiss into my hair. “There’s this great Indian place around the corner from my parents’ house,” he says. Despite the innocuousness of the sentence, it’s the way he says it, low intomy ear like it’s a promise he’s intent on keeping, that makes a tremble zig and zag through me.
“And LA?” I ask, more tears filling the cracks in my voice.
“What about LA?”
“How—” I swallow. “How do we keep this going? What happens after this hypothetical date? When you go back to LA?”
His face is still buried in my hair, but I hear the way his exhale shakes. “We’re pretending, remember? In this scenario, I don’t go back to LA. Instead, I stay, and we have coffee together every morning out of one of those famed generic mugs of yours.”
“Oh,” I say, eyes prickling once more. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeats, like we could actually have this.
Eighteen
