Page 33 of Ominous: Part 1
Me: I’ll nap in the bleachers.
Him: Not a fucking chance.
Me: …
Me: If you don’t win every match, I’m going home.
It took him so long to reply to the last message, I wondered if I had actually upset him. But I don’t know why I thought such a thing, now beside him in his car. He seems completely serene.
“What if watching you becomes boring?” I smile as I ask the question, but I don’t look at him. Between us, though, I feel the tension amplified. Worse than it was before, and for me, it was always bad. But after last night, it’s like I can’t stop thinking of how I wanted togive into him. I’m a little more collected now, not quite ready to fall to my knees, but no less enamored. In fact, my infatuation has broken new ground. He’s just sopretty,his physicality makes it hard not to think of whispered things. Stuff I’ve watched in porn. My hands on his body. My mouth all over him, even as I don’t let him touch me.
Or maybe… maybe I think of other things. His palm pressing into my chest, forcing me down, his fingers digging into my jaw,makingme look at him,endurehim—
“Do you think that’s even a remote possibility?”And his fucking voice.
I dig my lime green nails into my palms. I’m still wearing the same Band-Aid I was last night. I have the sudden urge to tell him what I did, but I clamp those words down, swallowing them like the lump in my throat. “Everyone can become boring.”
A second later, I hear the leather of his seat shift, and I sense him before he speaks.
Right next to me, his breath, like candy, skates over the side of my mouth, even as he doesn’t touch me. A shiver slides down my spine, and I’m holding all the air in my lungs, dizzy with his nearness.
“What do you feel right now?”
Paralyzed. Alive. Nervous. Scared. Very muchnotbored.
Back up, Eli.
“Tired.” I almost choke on the lie, and I don’t dare turn my head toward his. If I did, our lips would touch.
“Look at me.”
No.I can’t say it. I just shake my head, a fraction of an inch, not wanting to bring our mouths closer together, because in my head I hear him telling me he’s going to kiss me soon.
He says nothing, and I almost wish he’d make me do it. Listen to him.
Grab me. Force me. Don’t let me get away with this.It all rings alongside ofdon’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me.
The anticipation slithers under my skin, my pulse ballooning comically loud in my ears, I’d be surprised if he couldn’t hear it.
But a long second later, he pulls away, and I don’t know if I exhale with relief or disappointment. I sink back into my seat, closing my eyes, but still not able to face him.
“Boring things are easy to look at.” He starts to roll the windows up in his car, and I almost wish he wouldn’t. Like I need the fresh air to get enough oxygen into my lungs. “It’s why people reread books, spend hours watching the same show they’ve already seen a dozen times, listen to a song they heard over and over on the radio when they were a kid.” He finishes with the windows and turns the engine off, plunging us into silence. “It’s comfortable. Meaningless.Boring.”There’s a slice of anger stabbing through the last word. “When you can look at me without blushing, or flinching, or wanting to grab me, wantingmeto grabyou,then we’ll have a problem.”
I take a deep breath, open my eyes. “I don’t want you to grab me,” I tell him, mostly truthfully, ignoring his commentary onboring.
I can feel his eyes on me, drifting over my skin like a living thing. “Yeah? Whatdoyou want?”
I run my tongue over the sharp points of my top teeth, staring at the storm surrounding the castle.I don’t know. Help me decide.Instead of that, all I say is, “You’ll figure it out.”
He answers by getting out of the car.
* * *
Wrestling is fascinating.
Similar to the MMA I’ve seen sporadically with Sebastian, I’m always shocked how such stagnant positions can expend so much effort. Eli, in a black singlet, and his opponent, in red, are head-to-head, their fingers wrapped around one another’s biceps in a strange sort of hug, and they don’t seem to be actually moving. Even still, I can see their flexed muscles, squared shoulders, the tension in their inaction.
Trafalgar’s wrestling coach, standing beside the desk chair placed at the edge of the mat, has his arms crossed, a bundle of papers clenched in one hand, the other under his chin. He’s wearing glasses, a small man in good shape, he hasn’t once looked away from Eli.
