“I definitely need to have a label on this.” He slides closer until we are face to face and our noses brush. “Otherwise, I have to keep using terrible pick-up lines like, ‘Hey, girl. I just dropped a new single. It’s me. I’m single.’” His eyebrows raise, and his mouth turns down as if to ask if I’m impressed.
“I definitely need you to call me your girlfriend, then. For the sake of all humanity.” I don’t wait for him to make the move. I do it on my own. Taking his face in my hands, I pull him in for a kiss, soft and lingering, running my fingers through his wayward hair. His glasses hit my face when I turn my head, and we both let out a laugh when he pulls back and takes them off.
“Did you like the game?” He asks, his hands roaming my legs and higher, making me squirm.
“Of course, I did. Your title needs some work, though.”
Elliot leans back, fake-offended. “What?”
I shrug. “The acronym is SDtS which looks so much like STDs it’s not even funny. You’ll have a ton of people saying shit about it once it’s released. Maybe just shorten it to Dims the Stars? I’m not a marketing professional.”
“You want me to release it?” He asks, moving in again, crawling over my body on the couch, pinning me on both sides as he straddles my stomach and slips his fingers into mine.
“I’d be offended if you didn’t. It’s gonna make us millionaires.”
“Billionaires!” Comes Cline’s voice from behind his bedroom door. “Also, can you move this to the bedroom? I’m trying to get my beauty sleep.”
“That much sleep is called a coma!” I yell to him and watch as his door slowly opens and his head appears.
Elliot is completely still on top of me, and Cline walks toward us with tentative steps, his eyes wide and hands up in front of him. “Let’s all remember that the coma joke was said by Audrey. I was not the one who instigated it. I had no hand in it …”
With a nudge, I shove Elliot off of me, and I’m sitting up next to him on the couch, looking them both over. “Is this how it’s going to be? Eggshells? Because if it is, you need to stop that shit right now. I’m not a fragile fucking flower. I ride an alicorn.” I nod my head for emphasis. “I slay fedora wearing dragons.”
“No, you don’t. He’s your friend,” Cline says, pointing a finger at me.
“I’m the hero in this game, boys. Don’t you forget it.” I stand and walk over to Cline, standing on my tiptoes to reach up and give him a hug. “I love you, you idiot,” I whisper when he hugs me back.
“I have a girlfriend,” he says back right before I poke him in the neck and make him fold in two, giggling like a doughboy.
Pushing him back, I extend my hand to Elliot, and he takes it, following behind me to his bedroom. “So does Elliot,” I say as I close the door.
We’re alone in his room, his piles of clothes still scattered about and wires still coming from every possible place imaginable. He sits on the bed and watches me while I settle into the desk chair and swivel side to side.
“Are you tired?” I ask.
He shakes his head no, and I turn some more, tilting my head to look up at the ceiling.
“Me either. What a conundrum.”
“I can think of a few things we could do,” he says, and I roll my head forward to look at him with an eyebrow raised.
“Does one of them include using your superpower?”
He makes a “come hither” motion with two fingers, and I nod.
“Yep. That’s the one.”
“Since we’re on the subject…” His gaze lowers to the bedspread and he licks his lips before he speaks again, quieter this time. “That night. Was that your first time?”
“Would you be super shocked if I said that it was? I told you before that I’m not comfortable with my body.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” The look on his face is almost adorable, but my cheeks are on fire and my hands are sweating so it’s a little hard to appreciate.
I shrug. “You’re awkward and I have panic attacks. Did you really think that would go over well?”
He nods a couple times and blinks rapidly. “Fair enough.”
“The truth is that you’re the first person I felt safe with. And if you’re wondering whether or not it had anything to with what happened afterward…”
“I saw the texts. I know it wasn’t that.”
“So sure of yourself,” I joke, swiveling in the chair once more.
“I mean if you’re not sure whether it was good or not, we could always try it again. You know. For science.” He’s grinning and that pull in my chest becomes so tight I can hardly breathe, but it’s in the very best way.