The Endless Road to Sunshine - Nicky James Page 0,109

I wasn’t sure it ever had been. Maybe he didn’t want to shine a light on it, so I kept my mouth shut too. The cuddling, the movies, the intimate sex, I savored it all, wishing, hoping, and dreaming that for once in my life I could have more.

“How about you shower and dress, and I’ll finish making breakfast.”

“Sounds perfect.”

He kissed me again, lingering a few extra minutes before retreating to the bathroom.

Chapter NINEteen

Jason

I started taking my antidepressant medication on Monday morning. After a rocky weekend, a near breakdown in front of Skylar, and the overwhelming night and morning that had followed, I felt ready. Although I still wasn’t sure I believed in them, Skylar had given me a taste of happiness again. It was enough for me to know it was something I wanted to strive for, cling to, achieve permanently. I still felt like I was stuck underwater most days, unable to penetrate the surface, but from the murky depths, I could see the sun shining overhead, and it gave me hope.

Hope was something I hadn’t been sure I would ever feel again.

I missed it enough that it was worth taking a few measly pills.

Somehow, without talking about it, Skylar and I fell into a routine.

He showed up at my house every evening, and what had started out as a distraction or a means of escape had become more. We still ended up tangled together in heated passion most days, but it was the times in between that had become more prominent in my mind.

It was movies on the couch. It was Skylar sprawled out and taking up every inch of my bed as he slept beside me. It was late nights of him studying and me marking papers and organizing lectures. It was the endless depth of his eyes. His secret smiles. His runaway mouth. It was in the long glances we shared during class. The stolen kisses. The brief touches. My favorite was when I ran in the early mornings and returned to find Skylar singing Broadway showtunes in his underwear as he made us breakfast.

Every day that week, it was all about Skylar.

Every waking hour, he was always on my mind.

While teaching class one morning, it dawned on me that I hadn’t thought about Morgan in days. Initially, the realization choked me up. I’d been swamped with guilt for all of ten seconds before Skylar had glanced up from his work and smiled.

Then my balance returned, and thoughts of Morgan drifted away.

On the nights Skylar worked, I left the door unlocked so he could sneak in and crawl into bed beside me.

When the weekend rolled around again, we spent every minute we could together.

“Can you read this over and tell me if it’s okay?” Skylar scowled at his laptop, crunching a pencil between his teeth as he thought. It was his thing. The poor piece of wood was so filled with teeth marks there was hardly any yellow paint remaining.

It was a Sunday. Skylar had been finishing up his homework while I watched a documentary on the Great Indian Railway. He sat on the floor in front of the coffee table while he worked, dressed in nothing more than tight little underwear. I’d called him a tease, which had only encouraged him to dance about, flaunting his ass while he proceeded to tell me in mind-boggling detail about a skimpy bathing suit he’d once owned that had suffered an unfortunate demise on a beach in Spain.

Without taking my eyes from the TV, I asked, “Read what? And if it’s for my class, the answer is no.”

“Dammit. Fine. Never mind.”

The pencil moved up and down as he chewed and chewed, typing and grunting and making cute faces at his laptop. He had one earbud in, but he was so lost in his homework he’d stopped singing and tapping to the beat an hour ago.

“I have to do better on this one so I can pull my grade up. I can’t believe you only gave me a seventy-two on my last paper.”

“A seventy-two is good.”

“A seventy-two is shit. I worked hard on that. You’re such a hardass.”

“To be fair, I didn’t give you anything. Marianne marks your work, and you know it. Conflict of interest.”

We’d discussed it, and the only way I could sleep at night without feeling any more guilty than I already did was by passing off all Skylar’s work to my TA. He’d been fine with it until he realized Marianne marked hard—harder than