Page 52 of Hot Mess Express
It’s disarming, how Bridger looks at me. I noticed this before. He never looks at you half-assed. He looks at you fully. Allowing you his pure, undivided attention. Seeing you completely, seeing you with all his might, capturing every word you utter.
And the ones you don’t.
“The … fuck just … happened?” I say. Or at least I think I say it. I might breathe the words. Or just think them.
“Almost got hit by a truck,” he replies in a calm, gentle tone, confirming I did just use my mouth to make words.
“Feels like … like my fuckin’ soul’s still out on the … the road. Hasn’t c-come back to my body yet.”
“That’s fine,” says Bridger. Why is his voice so soft and tender like that, giving me chills to hear it? “You can stay right here ‘til that soul comes on back.”
My face wrinkles up. I fight an instinct to tell him I don’t need to be in his arms, he doesn’t need to hold me so tightly, this is too close, too intimate, too weird.
But every cell inside my petrified body says something else.
It reminds me how comfortable I felt last night at the church when I passed out—in Bridger’s arms. I felt safe then. Safe enough to drift into the deepest sleep.
I feel just as safe right now.
Except I’m not drifting off to sleep on the hard-ass floor of a church.I’m wide awake.
“I was serious,” I tell him. “About … the permission thing. I’m a good guy. Would’ve asked permission, had I known.”
Bridger’s face is so goddamned close. “Had you known what?”
“That you’re …” My tongue can’t talk to my teeth, which can’t talk to my jaw, which can’t talk to my stupid throat. All my words sound funny. “That you’re into guys.”
Bridger doesn’t say anything for a minute. This close, I notice every detail of his face when it moves, even his eyebrows when they tick up the tiniest bit, maybe with curiosity, but most likely amusement. “So do you ask your girlfriend for permission, too?”
I frown at him. “Who?”
“Your girlfriend. The one you were at Tumbleweeds with.”
“Huh? Wait, you mean Juni?” Suddenly I laugh. It’s awkward to laugh this close to someone’s face, by the way. It comes out like a muffled noise through my nostrils. “Juniper isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my bestie.”
“Bestie?”
“Yeah, bestie. Ain’t you had a—”Fucking Christ, our facesare so close, I can count his eyelashes. “—a bestie before?”
“Not really.”
And when you’re this close to someone, you can’t look away. There’s nowhere to put your eyes except on their face, right there, like all of my attention is trapped.
Yet I don’t mind at all.
I want to be trapped, right here where it feels safe—safe and a little weird. I think I’m starting to like the weird.Is that weird?
“What do you mean you’ve never had a bestie?” I ask, quiet. “Don’t you have any friends?”
“Not really.”
“Who’s Pete then?”
“My brother in arms.”
“And you don’t consider him a friend?”
“It’s different.”
