I tried not to show my annoyance. “That’s good. I’m glad.” I sat up and adjusted myself quickly.
“But it just seems so final,” she whispered. She sniffed once, causing me to look at her. Tears filled her eyes and for a moment, I wondered how it was possible to go from pure need to whatever the hell was happening.
“It’s not,” I assured her. “It’s just until it’s safe enough for me to get you out of here.”
“And then what happens?” she asked, her voice cracking as she sat up.
“What do you mean?”
She leaned into my touch, her glazed eyes locked on mine. “With me and you, and us? What happens to us?”
There was a sudden ache in my chest, emotional, physical, and so damn powerful, my hand automatically went to cover it. My eyes drifted shut, my breath catching as I waited for the pain to subside.
“Are you okay?” Bailey asked, her hands on my shoulders, her head dipped so she could see me.
I nodded slowly, trying to hide my body’s reaction to her proximity. “I’m fine.” I placed my hand on her leg and looked up at her, faking a calmness in my words when I said, “I don’t know what the right thing to say is, Bailey.”
“The truth, Nate.”
“The truth is I don’t know.”
She nodded as if my words gave her some form of clarity. “When it’s safe, and I’m out, will I still be able to see you?”
I didn’t need to respond, she already knew the answer.
“I don’t know what I’m more afraid of,” she said, laying back down and taking me with her. “Being stuck here forever or never seeing you again.”
There was a desperation in her words, one that matched the way she looked at me. “I don’t know either, Bailey.”
She stared at me a long time before looking up at the ceiling, her hands on her stomach, fingers tapping. When I lay next to her and placed my hand on top of hers, she smiled, her eyes moving to mine. Then she chewed her lip while her hands reached up, fingers lacing through my hair when she pulled me toward her waiting mouth. We kissed long and slow as if we had all the time in the world and nothing and no one could take that away from us. Because in our minds, the lies we lived created the perfect balance between chaos and calm. And while the chaos could kill us, the calm had us aching for one more second, one more moment of self-destruction.
24
Bailey
Nate glanced at me quickly before returning to the mirror in front of him. He lifted his chin and bit down on his bottom lip, his focus back on the razor as it ran across his jaw.
I watched him, fascinated, while I sat on the bathroom counter.
“What?” he asked, raising his eyebrows, his eyes back on mine.
I reached out and ran the back of my fingers across his jaw, trying hard not to frown. “You look so young,” I told him, and it wasn’t a lie. I’d never seen him clean-shaven before. There was always a few days’ growth, and when he did shave, it was a quick run with an electric razor. But now, his eyes seemed clearer, his jaw more defined. He looked like a kid—a kid who didn’t have the weight of the world on his shoulders and wasn’t responsible for someone’s life. My life. I tried to smile though I’m not sure if it showed. “You look so handsome.”
“Yeah?” he asked, looking away and concentrating on the task at hand. “Maybe I’ll shave more often.”
“You don’t have to.”
“If you like it, I will.”
Somehow, with those simple words, he managed to turn my frown into a genuine smile. I kept watching him while he finished shaving, my gaze skimming his bare chest, down to the dips of his abs and paused for a moment at the towel wrapped around his waist. I hesitated, my cheeks growing warm, before looking further down at the bulge. I chewed my lip, my eyes focused on the outline until he cleared his throat.
He smirked. “You okay?”
I nodded and looked away. “So this thing tonight…” I said, hoping to change the subject. For months (I assume) we’d been sleeping in the same bed, and the most we’d done is kiss and the occasional grope. I think he felt the pressure of going further more than I did.
He washed his razor under the running tap and shook it out a couple times before trashing it. “What about it?” he asked, wiping his face with a towel. He stood in front of me, close enough that I could smell him, but far enough that he wasn’t touching me.
“What is it again?”
He shrugged lazily. “It’s a preppy party for some rich kid who got into some fancy college. I guess his parents are throwing some kind of show-off party, and while the parents mingle and compare notes on how great their kids are, the kids gather and get fucked up on whatever I supply them,” he said simply.
“So why do you have to go? And why are you shaving for it?”