Page 103 of Honeysuckle
“That was easy?” I laughed softly.
He shook his head.
“No, you fucking idiot, that was agony,” he said and I knew he didn’t mean because of me but because of all the trauma he had just waded throughforme. “For making the last few days easy, you could have flipped out the moment you found everything out, my mom, the Shores.”
I waited patiently for him to get through it.
“Just thank you,” he said, swallowing hard. His hand lifted, and I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but his fingers brushed over my bruised knuckles on the couch, a ghost of a touch that barely felt real.
“If all your gratitude feels like that…” I lowered my voice, leaning into his gravity. “Then you’re welcome, but—”
Josh’s lips curled into a gentle smirk. “Spit it out, Tuck.”
“I don’t want you to feel like youhaveto show it, ever,” I said to him. I wasn’t here for the sex or the makeouts. Hell, I didn’t even need him to hold my hand or even pretend he liked me around the guys. “That part doesn’t have to be necessary,” I said to him, trying to get him to understand.
“Our definitions of necessary will never align,” he said.
“Isn’t that a bad thing?” I sighed and he shook his head, causing his hair to fall loose from the pushed-back style he had combed it into after his shower. I was so nervous to do it wrong that I hadn’t noticed Josh leaving out all the instructions on how to love him right.
“No, Tuck,” he said. "But we do what we can, when we can. And right now, I’m fucking exhausted and want to go to bed.”
“The movie isn’t even over,” I complained, lifting my hand finally and pointing at the screen. Josh laughed at me.
“Fine, you stay here and finish. I’m going to bed,” he said, and I knew it meant that if I didn’t come now, he’d spend the night on his side of the room because getting comfortable together was a process.
He climbed out of my lap, leaving nothing but cold, aching loneliness behind, tugging off his sweater at the bottom of the stairs and disappearing out of sight.
“Fine,” I grumbled to myself and rolled off the couch, jogging after him. I wasn’t ready to be left behind just yet.
He was already tossing his pillow on my bed when I closed the door behind me, and he pointed.
“Against the wall,” he said, for what felt like the hundredth time in the last two weeks, and I listened without a shred of hesitation every single time.
I stripped off my clothes down to my boxers and slipped against the wall, pulling my blankets up around my waist and shoving my arm under my pillow to crumple it up under my head. Josh waited until I settled, then climbed in beside me. Only that time when he crawled into the bed, he lay facing me. For weeks, I’ve slept staring at his back, and having access to the look in his eyes and the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw was rattling.
It was like a gift.
The silence stretched on for a moment before he asked. "How’s your hand?”
I looked down at it and took in the ugly irritation. The red was settling into a dark purple color that would be sprawled across the top of my hand come morning. I had hit Ian harder than I had ever hit anyone in my entire life and was paying the price.
“Fine.” I tried to flex my fingers and groaned as the muscles screamed for me to stop. “Okay, not great.”
“You have to stretch it out, you’re seizing up.” Josh held out his hand, and before I could stop him, he was pressing his hand into mine. His fingers were long and soft, with small reminders of his occupation in the form of rough healed blisters. It was a little smaller in size as he pushed against my palm and the whimper that left me was embarrassing as he flexed the fingers to full extension.
“Breathe, Tuck,” he warned as he let them fall limp and did it again without warning or the same delicate touch. A thick, painful growl left my throat at the movement, but they went easier that time. You’re a baby,” he laughed through his own discomfort and pulled his hand away, but I wasn’t ready to let go of his touch just yet, tangling my fingers down around his with a stiff curl.
“Please?” I asked as he hesitated. “Give me this, I behaved earlier,” I said, I wasn’t above begging him for the contact.
He mumbled something under his breath but didn’t move as our hands came together and rested in the bed between us, his arm pulled closer to my side of the bed.
“I went to see Ms. Cody,” he confessed. "Just so you know.”
He listened.
“Thank you,” I said to him.
“She’s worse than both Cael and Coach,” he said, a tightness to his tone no doubt a result of the contact.
