Page 63 of Burning for Alexander
“Yeah, my family. I don’t… they can’t…” He blew out a frustrated breath. “They’ll make something out of this. You and me. They’ll turn it into a dating thing, when we both know that’s not the case.”
Alex met my eyes. “I know this is just physical. Just for experience. But can it also be just for me? I really don’t want to have to explain to my sister that I?—”
I leaned in and kissed him, hard. “Just you and me,” I agreed before kissing him again. I held him where I wanted him with a grip of his thick hair.
Why couldn’t I take my hands off this guy? What made him so different?
We kissed for a long time before he melted back against my pillows. “Killin’ me.”
Within a few moments, he was asleep. I looked over at the old digital alarm clock on my bedside table. Two twenty-three in the morning. We’d been fucking around for hours.
The full moon shone through the window enough to set milky stripes along his pale skin.
Don’t go out with Will Wascomb again.
If I thought it hard enough, maybe the message would somehow pass from me to him.
I got up to close the curtains and lock the front door. Before I came back to bed, I stopped at my laptop, which was still open on the kitchen table.
The investigator I’d hired had gotten back to me with a boilerplate explanation about how it would “take time” to narrow the search down to “quality leads” but that he already had a few “irons in the fire” and we were “off to a great start.”
I hesitated before hitting Reply.
Hey Tim,
Thanks for the email, but I’ve changed my mind about theinvestigation. I was looking for closure, like I explained to you during our video call, but I think… I think I’m going to let it go. Please let me know how much I owe you for the work you’ve already done, and I apologize if I’ve wasted your time.
Thanks again,
Judd Kincaid
I hit Send and felt a weight lift off my shoulders. Max was right.DrunkenPoethad had a chance to find me for a while now, and I was easy to find. The fact that he hadn’t come looking clearly meant he didn’t want to. And I didn’t want to choose a ghost over a real, live, flesh-and-blood man who made me laugh, who made me think, who made mefeel… and who was literally in my bed waiting for me.
I closed the laptop and moved quickly toward the bedroom. Then I slid in beside Alex to hold him while he slept.
19
ALEX
IndexEcho:If you could do anything, what would it be?
DrunkenPoet:There’s an old building near my sister’s place. I dream about turning it into something amazing.
_____________________
Sleepingwith Judd Kincaid was my delicious, forbidden secret. And I was giddy with it.
I’d slept over at his place three separate times in as many weeks. In fact, the entire month of October seemed to be Kincaid-themed. Or maybe sex-themed.
Did it matter? Was there a difference?
Giving Will the polite brush-off had been hard, only because he was such a sweet guy. I didn’t want to burn that bridge, considering the thing with Kincaid was clearly only temporary, but at the same time, I wasn’t willing to give up sex with Judd to start dating Will.
There was no question whatsoever. I’d take sleeping with the fire chief over dating the boy next door any day of the week.
Unfortunately, Judd and I were both still slammed with work, which meant once-a-week hookups were about the best we could do, especially if we didn’t want anyone finding out about what we were doing.
And I definitely did not.
