Page 57 of The Reluctant Reaper
Yearning? Horniness? Unrequited nonsense?“Stupidity?”
“—stress. So we kissed. Who gives a fuck? I’m not reading anything into it. You prob’ly shouldn’t, either. It’s like that time I got hopped up on gummy bears and went to a noncostume party dressed as Baby New Year and you saw my dick. No big deal.” She snickered; she couldn’t help it. Gray, stone sober, nude but for a too-short sheet, had been a sight indeed. “Grow up, idiot.”
“So, no big deal?” she asked.
“No big deal.”
“It’s just that easy, huh?”
“Sure.”
* * *
It wasn’t.
“Dammit! I need more blankets.”
“Pretty sure every blanket within a five-mile radius is on you right now, Amara. I can barely hear you; pretty sure the quilts are pressing the air from your lungs.”
Amara thrashed beneath her quilted cocoon. Before this evening, the fact that Gray slept clammy had been hilarious. He could draw body warmth from a cucumber.
But there was nothing hilarious about current events. She was aware that he was only a few inches away, that it would be the easiest/scariest thing in the world to roll toward him and kiss him again, to reach below his waist and yank down his...argh.
She was afraid to look at the clock, to see just how many hours of awkward they’d been enduring.
She sat up and glared when Gray giggled. “Sorry,” he continued. “It’s just I’m amazed you can move at all with that weight on top of you. Oh, shit, did I just do a metaphor?”
“You did not. Isn’t this bothering you?”
“I’d endure any amount of awkward with you.”
She sighed, and not just from frustration. “All right, that’s sweet and stupid.”
“And it’s not like this is the first time things got weird between us.”
“Yes, but those other times were related to death-god shenanigans. Or ordinary shenanigans, like when you bet merch you didn’t have and lost.”
“IswearI hadNew Mutants#98. Double-sleeved!”
“Yes, yes, the first appearance of Deadpool, I remember.”
“Pretty sure my mom took it, but it’s not like I was going to reach out and ask her. Easier to just pay up and clean your damned oven. Who uses an oven like a microwave, then forgets she uses the oven like a microwave? A week later, I could still smell the burned plastic.”
“Don’t remind me. I still feel bad about ruining that fried chicken.”
“My point is, things have been awkward before. And my other point stands—you were stressed beyond belief. I knew it, and you did, too. So obviously I would never?—”
“I’m aware.” Was she ever. Gray didn’t have to spell out his revulsion.
“You didn’t let me finish. I would never?—”
“Let’s move on, shall we? I was dumb, you were dumb, all were dumb, forever and ever, amen.”
“Let’s put that on some T-shirts,” Gray suggested. “No, I’ve got enough T-shirts; let’s make hoodies instead.”
“I can’t wait until Chernobog scares the nonsense out of you.”
“Oh my God! I forgot about him. He comes at night and it’s night!”
