How to Repair a Mechanical Heart - By J. C. Lillis Page 0,56
a step closer.
“What do you mean,” I say, “break your heart?”
He closes his eyes. The mechanical heart blinks slow and steady.
“Don’t make me say it,” he whispers.
The rough draft of tonight’s story was set in my head this morning, but now it’s rewriting itself into something ten times better. It makes a weird kind of sense. It’s not going to happen in some expected place like the dance floor, while “Such Great Heights” tweedles in the background and the disco ball bathes us in generic starshine. It’s going to happen in a stopped elevator, like the worst, hackiest Cadsim fic on the Internet, only now it’s for real and it’s going to be amazing, just like if hey_mamacita had stayed up all night to get every detail just right.
I kiss him.
Brandon’s blood sizzled as his lips met Abel’s: his body sang an anthem of strength and softness, of celebration unshackled from fear. I’M KISSING A BOY, he silently shouted. They conjugated the verb with rapture and wonder and cinnamon-flavored bliss. Kiss, kissing, kissed. And kissed again.
We break apart, the scent of cinnamon jelly beans tickling my nose.
“You don’t have to,” he mutters.
“Abel—”
“You just think you like me,” he says to the floor. “That’s all this is.”
“That’s all it ever is.”
“You think you do, because you told me all those private things and we like, bonded, and maybe you think you owe me…” His eyes are filling up. “Or maybe—”
“Abel.”
He looks up. “What?”
“I think I love you,” I tell him.
It slips out soft and quiet, and so easily I think maybe I didn’t say it out loud. But then I see his face, and I know I did. He tilts my face in his warm hands and kisses me back, and it’s like one of those perfect TV kisses they save for May sweeps, the ones the previews tease you about all season until you swear it won’t happen, and then when it does the forums blow up and the fans add eighteen exclamation points to everything and swear they’ll never ask God for anything else for as long as they live.
Abel rests his forehead on mine.
“That is most welcome news, Captain.”
I don’t call him Tin Man. I exhale, for the first time in five minutes.
I hit the elevator release, and we’re on our way.
Chapter Eighteen
Sim washes off him fast, like the cheap makeup Bec and I bought for past Halloweens to magic ourselves into little suburban vampires. I watch his hair and face reclaim themselves, the blue hair gel and silver greasepaint streaking the white shower tiles and swirling down the drain.
“Bran,” he murmurs.
“Mm.”
“Can I open my eyes now?”
I take a deep breath. It’s okay.
“Yes.”
I feel good when I say it, but when his eyelids actually open I back up a step, clutch the washcloth against me. The hotel shower stall feels smaller, stifling. Am I too hairy? Not hairy enough? Did he imagine I was cut like a marble statue underneath my big t-shirts? Why didn’t I do crunches this week at the campground after he fell asleep?
His eyes trace the droplets branching down my chest.
They stop at my waistband.
“Brandon. Cutie.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still wearing your boxers.”
“I am.”
“Is there something you need to tell me?”
“No.”
“Are you actually a Ken doll?”
“Nope.”
“Is your dad a secret superhero and you have a bionic penis and you make up this big religious-paranoia back story because it shoots laser beams and has the strength of a bulldozer?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it.”
“I’ve never done this.” I watch water whirl down the drain between my feet.
“Showered in boxers?”
“Been naked…with someone.”
“Well, obviously. However, when you said let’s take a shower, I naively assumed—”
“I know I know!” I draw my arms across my bare chest. “I’m sorry. I felt great and then…It’s new. You know?”
“Look, if you want to wait more—”
“I don’t.”
“But maybe you’re too—”
“No! No, listen.” I shove my wet hair off my forehead. I can’t screw this up. I won’t let bad thoughts in. I won’t. “It’s just, when I think about…sex or whatever, it’s kind of like on TV.”
“Vanilla and hetero?”
“No, like, there’s some kissing I guess, and then it fades out.”
He gets this stupefied look. “That’s all you picture?”
“Kind of.”
“Ever?”
“Mostly.”
“Even your dirty robot dreams?”
“Especially those.”
“Oh-kay. Wow.” He weighs the full pathetic horror of my PG-13 dream-life. “So is that…all you want, or is there—”
“No no. I want more.” My eyes wander down past his waist and oh my God I saw it crap crap don’t freak out it’s normal it’s beautiful it’s