“What do you think is missing?” He smirked. “Aside from originality.”
I smiled, letting my head rest back on the pillow behind me. “I don’t know.” I glanced away. “It’s not that I thought I’d be breaking new ground or writing something earth shatteringly profound. I just…” I looked back at him. “…thought I’d have something important to say. Instead, I’m relying on everything that’s already been written. I always kind of thought my dissertation would include … real research, new research—even if it was just interviews with common people about their common problems. Just something that can’t be Googled.” I laughed.
“So maybe that’s what’s missing. Maybe you need to get your head out of the books and start seeing this as a real life study. I mean, you were amazing in class the other night. You brought the relevance of the subject front and center, and you captivated the students. You captivated me.”
“I argued with you,” I corrected him.
He smiled. “You challenged me.” He studied me. “You made it feel real, relevant, and people understood that.”
“You never really did share your opinions on the subject. In fact, you refused to discuss the topic altogether if I recall.”
“I didn’t refuse anything. I said it’s complicated, and it is.” He crawled across the sofa and between my legs, taking my laptop from my hands and setting it on the floor as he laid on my body, propping his chin up in the middle of my stomach. “‘It’s complicated’ is a perfectly relevant answer.”
I sighed as I looked at him, and I reached for his lower lip, running my thumb across it. When he suddenly lunged for my finger, I shrieked. His lips closed around my thumb, and he sucked on it, his tongue circling and swirling around it as my mouth hung open. He let my thumb out of his mouth slowly, clamping his teeth gently onto the tip for a moment.
“I promise we’ll talk about this someday. But at the risk of ruining a perfectly good Saturday, can we maybe shelve this conversation for the time being?”
I nodded. He pushed off my body, stood, and walked toward the hallway, and I heard the bathroom door close moments later. When he returned, he was holding my packet of birth control pills in his hand. He walked to the couch, sinking down at the end and pulling his legs up casually. He studied me for a moment as he turned the package over in his hands.
“Can we talk about something?” He actually looked a little nervous when he asked the question.
“Yes.”
“Why do you take these? I mean … I was under the impression you weren’t too fond of fucking your boyfriends.”
“That’s an understatement,” I muttered. “Well I did have a boyfriend that I … had sex with on occasion until a couple months ago.” I rolled my eyes. “But really I’m just taking them now to stop my periods and to keep me sane, too. Bad PMS.”
He nodded as he studied my eyes, but he was quiet for a while. “I’ve exhibited some … self-destructive tendencies in the past. Yes?”
“I would say that’s likely true,” I responded.
“I need you to understand I’m not self-destructive with other people. My damage is limited to me.”
I glanced away, and I scoffed quietly. “That’s not true.” I looked back at him. “I’m sorry, but it’s just not. Ask Jake how he feels about you sleeping with his wife. The damage you do to yourself always affects the people around you. That’s just life.”
He stared at me blankly for a moment, but then his eyes shifted to look at the sofa between us. My heart pounded. I’d just taken the same damn argument we’d spent the past two days recovering from and thrown it right back in his face.
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, Kane. I’m really not, but please don’t say that to me. It hurts me to see you hurt yourself.”
When he finally looked up at me, he nodded subtly. “I know,” he said quietly. He said nothing else, and the packet in his hand suddenly seemed forgotten.
I crawled across the sofa to him this time, pushing his legs apart and curling up against his body. I took the packet from him, and I kissed up the side of his neck to his ear. I nipped his earlobe, and his breath caught in his throat, and then he hummed as he wrapped his arms around me. He pulled me up to my knees then, wrapping my legs around his waist as he leaned back against the end of the couch.
He took the packet back from me and held it up between us. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I’m not self-destructive with other people’s health. I would never jeopardize someone’s wellbeing for a fuck.”
I just stared at him.