Lexi jerked and frowned. “Austin, how horrible.”
I shrugged. “Just another victim of Westside Heights,” I said wryly.
Lexi boldly leaned forward until her mouth hovered above my mine. “And the other two girls?”
“One-night stands. Didn’t know the chicks. They knew I played for the Tide. We fucked. They left. And that is my entire sexual history.”
“But look at you,” Lexi said and gestured to my shirtless chest. “You’re perfect. You could have anyone you want.”
I laughed. “Perfect is relative, Pix. Beauty is relative.” The twist of her mouth told me she didn’t believe me.
“You like all the tattoos I got?” I asked, and she smiled.
“Yeah. I love them,” she confessed and stared deeply in awe at the dove and fleur-de-lys on my neck.
“But not everyone does,” I confessed to her, and I gained her attention once more.
Taking her finger again, I ran it across the bullet wound scar on my arm. “Do my scars repulse you?”
Lexi started at that and shook her head profusely. “No! Why would the scars repulse me? They’re not who you are. They’re from your past. They don’t bother me at all. It tells the story of your life.”
I smirked at her and moved my hands to hold her arms. Lexi’s breath paused and she frantically looked down, arms tensing as she breathed through my touch.
“Just like your weight’s no concern to me. You’re you because you’re you. I don’t give a shit about weight or height. I look at true people. Real people. You’re real, Pix. You got that shit in spades.”
Lexi’s blank face made me think I’d lost her to her mind again, but with a shake of her head, she came back to me quicker than before. And before I knew it, her hands had planted on my cheeks and her lips crashed down to mine. Instinctively, my hands stroked down her arms, and I kept mind to avoid her entire back.
Lexi got more into it. Her small tits pressed against my chest and her leg brushed up against my cock. At the contact, I groaned. Lexi snapped back her head. “You okay?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just so fuckin’ turned on I can’t see straight.”
“Oh,” Lexi said and looked down. When she noticed me adjusting my jeans, she blushed, averted her eyes, and repeated an exaggerated, “Oh!”
Laughing, I pulled her down to face me and, this time, she reached for my hand. “Thank you, Austin,” she whispered minutes later.
“What for?” I asked, hearing the comforting sound of an owl hooting outside the window.
Shrugging, she replied, “For being a fellow freak, I suppose.” Her fingers tightened around mine. “For not making me feel like a failure. Like an inexperienced fool.”
“You’re not a failure, Pix, nor a fool. If anything, you’re a damn hero. You survived something that could’ve killed you.”
“But that’s it, Austin. Someday it still could. I… I’ve found things harder lately. I feel I’m falling again. The inner voice, the anorexia… it’s trying to tear down my walls.” Lexi huffed and looked at me with wide eyes. “That’s the first time I’ve admitted that to anyone… maybe even to myself.”
I pushed a wayward strand of hair from her face and said, “This disease won’t get the better of you, Pix. I won’t let it.”
Lexi’s black eyebrows rose and she asked, “And how will you ensure that?”
Shrugging, I said, “I just figure I’ll never let you outta my sight for a while.”
Giggling, Lexi replied, “Careful, Carillo, that’s sounding scarily like a declaration of commitment.”
“Call it what you like, Pix. All I know is I like you. And I wanna see you more. I’m a Heighter from the boonies with a rap sheet—”
“And I’m an emo-anorexic virgin that can’t be touched,” she finished off.
“Match made in heaven, huh?” I said with a wink.
“What could possibly go wrong?” Lexi joked.
Although it was a joke, the two of us contemplated that question in silence. Truth was a shit ton could go wrong down this road. She could relapse; the Heighters could majorly fuck with me and ruin my dreams. Hell, Axel, my blood, would damn near murder me if he knew I was growing close to Pix, the only chick who could bring down the Heighter ownership of campus turf.
But right now, I didn’t wanna think about what could go wrong for us, didn’t wanna think of my older brother, Mamma, or Levi. I just wanted to sleep next to the little dark pixie and forget all our problems for tonight.
Yawning, Lexi settled farther into the mattress, and I watched as she closed her eyes.
With our fingers still entwined, I stared at her beautiful face and whispered, “Why the war paint, Pix?”