Page 49 of Under The Twilight Rainfall
Doesn’t make it any easier of a pill to swallow.
The elation I’d let myself feel over the evening wanes, and in its place is that sticky, sneaky anxiety that creeps in and tells me I’m no good for anyone.
I finish helping Lola with the mess, and while everyone is still preoccupied with their own tasks, I slip from the yard to the front of the house, hit the little dirt road, and just keep walking.
I don’t know where I’m going, but my chest was getting tight, and it was getting harder to breathe the longer I stayed and the more I thought about Valen and his family and how they welcome me butthey can’t want me.
Even if they think they do, there’s no way they actually would.
They don’t understand what it means to have me. That it means not hearing from me for months because I’m so focused on a shoot I forget the outside world. It means that strangers on the internet know my body almost as well as I do, and I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it.
It means never having all of me and accepting that ‘home’ is nothing more than the place I come to rest before rushing off again.
The further away I get, the more the knot in my chest loosens but never quite goes away. There’s an ache that sits there, one that carved its home years ago and is slowly opening back up to corrode and fester.
I avoid the busier areas, where people walk and talk and live their merry lives while I try not to get too comfortable. I’m not sure how long I go on, staring at the dirt that turns to gravel and back to dirt again, thinking about all the ways I’ve fucked up other people’s lives and how the only way I can think of to stop doing it is to change who I am on a fundamental level.
Not happening.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I ignore it at first, thinking maybe it’s Valen—that he’s noticed I’m gone and is worried about me—and I’m not ready to face the music yet. Not ready to admit that I already needed to run away and that it’s proof being with me in any capacity is a mistake.
But then it rings again. And again.
And there’s only one fucker in the world who’s that persistent.
“My butt tingles now, you ass,” I say into the line, tipping my head back to watch the clouds float along in the sky.
“Maybe try answering it the first time, dickweed,” Zeke says.
I choke back a laugh, offering a tight smile to someone walking the opposite direction.
“What do you want?”
“To tell my ignoramus of a friend, Happy Motherfucking Birthday, you ungrateful crow, and I thought you might be a little preoccupied with your tongue or dick... thought maybe I’d catch you in the act.”
“Are you ever not gross and invasive?”
“Baby, I’ve had my cock on and in every inch of your body. I don’t think I can be more invasive.”
I cringe, which is stupid because I love Zeke’s dick. I love the way he fucks. Up until now, he’s the only guy I’ve had sex with strictly for pleasure since my business took off.
But now that I’ve had Valen’s hands? His mouth? His somehow sweet and dirty words making me hot and needy?
Zeke is an incredible lay, but Valen is more than that.
Shit.
Valen is more.
I keep thinking about it. I keep coming back to that one thought. That Valen is motherfucking sunshine in the cloudy abyss that has become my life.
“I think I might be in love with him.”
I know I’m in love with the way his hands worship my body, with the kisses that drive me insane and have me craving more, more, more. But in love with Valen, the person?
Can I love someone and still be myself? Is it fair to them? Is it fair to me?
Goddamn.
