He pulls away, carefully, and I notice another star drawn on the back of his hand. “I’m only upset that she spoke with you in the first place. It wasn’t any of her business.”
“She was just worried about you.” As the words spill out, I realize that I believe them. “And she had every right to be worried. I’m not exactly a good person.”
“That’s not true,” he says. “Why would you say that?”
“I was a terrible girlfriend to Max.”
There’s a long pause. “Did you love him?” he asks quietly.
I swallow. “Yes.”
Cricket looks unhappy. “And do you still love him?” he asks. But before I can answer, he says in one great breath, “Forget it, I don’t want to know.” And suddenly Cricket Bell is inside my bed, and his torso is flattening against mine, and his pelvis is pressing against mine, and his lips are moving toward mine.
My senses are detonating. I’ve wanted him for so long.
And I need to wait a little longer.
I slide my hand between our mouths, just in time. His lips are soft against my palm. I slowly, slowly remove it. “No, I don’t love Max anymore. But I don’t want to give you this broken, empty me. I want you to have me when I’m full, when I can give something back to you. I don’t have much to give right now.”
Cricket’s limbs are still, but his chest is pounding hard against my own. “But you’ll want me someday? That feeling you once had for me . . . that hasn’t left either?”
Our hearts beat the same wild rhythm. They’re playing the same song.
“It never left,” I say.
Cricket stays through the night. And even though we don’t talk anymore, and even though we don’t do anything more than talk, it’s what I need. The calming presence of a body I trust. And when we fall asleep, we sleep heavily.
In fact, we sleep so heavily that we don’t see the sun rise.
We don’t hear the coffeepot brewing downstairs.
And we don’t hear Nathan until he’s right above us.
Chapter twenty-seven
Nathan grabs Cricket by the shoulders and throws him off my bed. Cricket scrambles into a corner while I flounder for my closest eyeglasses. My skin is on fire.
“What the hell is going on in here? Did he sneak in while—” Nathan cuts himself off. He’s noticed the bridge. He stalks up to Cricket, who shrinks so low that he almost becomes Nathan’s height. “So you’ve been climbing into my daughter’s bedroom for how long now? Days? Weeks? Months?”
Cricket is so mortified he can hardly speak. “No. Oh God, no. Sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
Andy runs into the room, sleep disheveled and frenzied. “What’s happening?” He sees Cricket cowering beneath Nathan. “Oh.”
“Do something!” I tell Andy. “He’ll kill him!”
Murder flashes across Andy’s face, and I’m reminded of what Max said ages ago, about how much worse it was dealing with two protective fathers. But it disappears, and he takes a tentative step closer to Nathan. “Honey. I want to kill him, too. But let’s talk to Lola first.”
Nathan is terrifyingly still. He’s so angry that his mouth barely moves. “You. Out.”
Cricket lunges for the window. Andy’s eyes bulge when he sees the bridge, but all he says is, “The front door, Cricket. Out the front door.”
Cricket holds up both hands, and in the daylight, it’s the first time I see that there are still scattered shreds of blue paint on his nails. “I just want you to know that we didn’t do anything but talk and sleep—sleep sleep,” he quickly adds. “Like with eyes closed and hands to oneself and dreaming. Innocent dreams. I would never do anything behind your back. I mean, never anything dishonorable. I mean—”
“Cricket,” I plead.
He looks at me miserably. “I’m sorry.” And then he tears downstairs and out the front door. Nathan storms out of my room, and the master bedroom door slams shut.
Andy is silent for a long time. At last, he sighs. “Care to explain why there was a boy in your bed this morning?”