Page 55 of Wild Fixation
I glance at the mop of brown hair splayed across my chest, lighter than the dark hair that grows there on its own. Jacob refused to let go of me all night, like he was afraid I’d float away if he released me. I can’t blame him, but I aim to start this day by proving to him that I won’t run from him anymore. Last night, I gave him everything, opened my chest so he could glimpse the heart beating within. Terrifying as it is, I’ve resolved to keep it open, to let him in, to do this differently than I’ve been doing it up until now.
After all, what do we have to lose?
Everyone knows. I confessed my feelings to him after the cameras caught him coming in here. I’m not his bodyguard anymore. So what the hell would keep me from having him?
I kiss the top of his head, and Jacob hums and snuggles in closer, as though he’s not draped over me. My arm is trapped under him, which allows me to rub circles along his back. He sighs softly awake, but doesn’t move from my embrace.
“Hey,” he says when he picks his head up.
First thing in the morning, and he’s wearing a dazzling smile. This man cannot be real, let alone lying in my bed, yet here he is. I tuck his hair behind his ear to ground myself with the tangibility of this impossible human.
“Let’s get breakfast,” he says.
Unsurprisingly, Jacob wakes up already going a hundred miles per hour.
“We can’t,” I say. “I’ll make us something here.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, maybe that huge mob of press outside my door?”
Jacob rolls his eyes. “We can bust through them.”
“You just want me to carry you again.”
His smile twists. “Maybe, but I also want to go have breakfast with you. There’s that really nice place over in Ballard.”
“It’s always packed. You do realize you’re famous, right? And I’m…”
“Don’t say it. You aren’t my bodyguard anymore. You made sure of that yourself. You’re my…”
He trails off, the word he almost said hanging between us. I hesitate before snatching it out of the air. Dare I call myself that? With him? It seems impossible, yet here Jacob is, perched on my chest and waiting for me to say it.
If last night taught me anything, it’s to stop holding back.
“Your boyfriend?” I say at last.
Joy blooms on his face, so bright it’s like the sun has pierced my blinds to find only him.
“Yes,” he says. “You are. You’re my boyfriend now. And boyfriends take boyfriends to breakfast.”
“Are you going to be this demanding the whole time?” I say, but I’m smiling.
“Only when I don’t get what I want.”
He hops out of bed, moving naked around my room without a drop of shame as he collects his clothes. The press is going to see him in what he wore yesterday, but it’s not like I can loan him anything. It would be huge on him.
The image of him in nothing but my shirt flashes through my mind, but I push it aside and focus on getting myself dressed. He borrows my toothbrush, and then we rejoin the world for the first time in … I don’t even know how long. Mason is in the living room with a bowl of cereal. He keep his gaze doggedly focused on the television, which makes me think he might have overheard some of our activities last night. Well, this isn’t going to get less awkward. All I can do is barrel through it.
“We’re going out for breakfast,” I say. “You hungry?”
He shakes his head. “They’re still out there,” he says with a nod at the door.
“Yeah, I kind of suspected.”
Jacob and I are nearly to the door when Mason finally gathers the courage to look at me. He gestures at us with his spoon.
“So is this, like, a thing now? Are you going to be in my house all the time?”
