Page 61 of A Very No Strings Halloween
“That was fucking awesome,” he says, kissing me as he slowly pulls out of me.
My eyes flutter open, and the way he’s looking at me, I think he felt it too. That deep, intense connection. That need to sayI love you.
He opens his mouth to say something, pauses, then combs his fingers through his hair and says, “I’m gonna go clean up—hang on.”
He’s only gone for a minute, I think, but cold air caresses the skin on my bare thighs where he once was. When he comes back, he uses a damp towel to wipe between my legs, which feels even more intimate than what we just did. I love him. I open my mouth to say it.
But Billy says, “That was like we’re teenagers and your parents are in the next room so we had to be real quiet.”
Oh.
“That was hot, right?”
Oh.
“We never did that one before, huh?”
“Nope.”
“You okay?”
I am now,I think to myself. Thanks to you. I almost gave you my heart. And that would have been a terrible mistake. This is why you’re so good for me, Billy. Not because you’re fun and lovely and kind and generous and sexy and make me feel alive in a way I’ve never felt before. Not because I could imaginegiving you my heart for the rest of your life and taking care of yours for the rest of mine. No.
You’re good for me because you remind me why I can’t. Why we just pretend. We make our scenes as ephemeral as life itself. Because it all ends. I lie here feeling like death, in the house of a woman who took care of a man’s heart, my patient’s, until the end of her days. But her days ended too soon, and with no one to care for his heart, it shattered. She didn’t mean for it to. That’s just life.
Thank you, Billy.
“Yup” is what I say out loud.
He twists open a bottle of water, chugs it, then sits on the bed next to me and brings it to my lips. “Can you lift your head to take a sip?”
I nod, raise my head a bit, and drink a little water.
“You good?”
I nod. A lie.
He gets up and looks out the window. “Gettin’ dark already. I’m gonna turn on the light in here, okay?”
“Sure.”
He switches on the chandelier and the light bulbs flicker. They won’t stop flickering. “Oh no,” I groan. “The lights.”
“What about ’em?”
“They’re flickering again.”
“They aren’t flickerin’.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and then reopen them. He’s right. They aren’t flickering. I just need electrolytes, I guess. “Oh.” I pull up my pants—or Nelson’s pants, I suppose—and slowly, very slowly, sit up. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
“Oh yeah? You ever taken a shower here before?”
“No. But you ran the shower after the caulk dried, right?”
“Yeah. It seemed fine. I still think we need to get a home inspector over here, though.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I grunt out as I hoist myself off the bed and onto my feet.
