Page 21 of Lovers Like Us
I test something and edge my fingers towards his—he tenses. Badly. Enough to where I draw my hand back to his shoulder, and he stays rigid and catches hisbreath.
I have to ask. “You still want to try tobottom?”
Maximoff lifts his body off me a little more. His palm on the quilt by my shoulder. His eyes trace an inked skull pirate on my ribcage. “Yeah,” he says with a heavy breath. “I do, but I keep thinking about the tour bus and how the fuck this’llwork.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, confident aboutthis.
He waits for me to add something else. A strategy or a plan. Maximoff likes to pack his survival gear, and I’m basically saying,just trust me with what we have on ourbacks.
He makes a face. “So we’ll figure it out in a million light-years.”
I roll my eyes into a short laugh. “I meant we’ll figure it out in the moment, not when we’re both buried six feet under the ground.” His phone rings and then buzzes somewhere on thebed.
He sits up. “I could beimmortal.”
I sit up too. “You’re definitely not humble.” I find his phone beneath his pillow and toss it to him. “Here you go,beautiful.”
Maximoff catches his cell and looks thoroughly annoyed by me. Job well done. “Thanks,” he says. “Now I’m eternallysterile.”
“That’s not how that works,” I say. “Looks like you need elementarybiology.”
His next words are garbled in a longyawn.
“And sleep,” I add as he pinches his tired eyes—he drops his hand, glowering. His forest-greens flit to my rock-hard bulge, then hisbulge.
“I can tell you who’s bigger. And it’s notyou.”
He tries hard not to break into a smile. “Funny.”
“It wasn’t ajoke.”
He glares. “Now I’m fucking limp. Thankyou.”
I tilt my head. “Do I really need to point out the liehere?”
He ignores me by pulling the quilt over our legs. Then he unlocks his phone. “It’s probably Dari.”His assistant.“I emailed her about the tour.” A frown crests his face. “I missed a call. Maybe a butt dial since it didn’t ring that many times…and a text from the same person.” He straightensup.
I rest my elbow on my bent knee. “It’s not Dari,” Iassume.
He flashes his cell, a text on thescreen.
Can we talk when you have time?– Dr.Keene.
Fucking hell. My father is texting him. On a subject unrelated to hishealth.
Someone among the Hales, Cobalts or Meadows must’ve told my father that I’m dating Maximoff. It makes the mostsense.
And instead of contacting me, his son, he’s reaching out to Maximoff. I sense the strain between me and my father all the time, but it seems to yanktighter.
Maximoff cracks a knuckle. “What do you want me todo?”
“I don’t care.” I’d rather he just lie back down and try to sleep than deal with thisshit.
“You do fucking care,” he rebuts, “or else you wouldn’t look ready to uppercut a punching bag rightnow.”
“If that were true, then it’d mean my father pisses me off.” I’m about to swing my legs off the bed. “And when it comes to him, I feelnothing.”
Maximoff catches my bicep before I move away. “You seriously feelnothing?”
