Page 5 of Grease & Grips (Friction Fiction #2)

“ I don’t know what that couch has been through,” I say over my can of Coke before taking a long swig.

Andrés looks up at me from his spot on the old sofa. Fabric worn thin, splattered with questionable stains.

He glances down at the largest spot, a wide ring of what might be oil or maybe old coffee, then looks back at me and gives a half-shrug because yeah… that tracks.

I’m sitting on a rolling stool a good five feet away. I know that keeping him here and letting it stretch is a bad idea, but I couldn’t bring myself to make him leave.

“So I’ve gotta sit on this nasty ass couch by myself?” he asks, laughing.

“Not much around here that ain’t stained in some way or another.”

There’s no edge to the way he watches me. I see it in his focus. Like he’s trying to figure me out without scaring me off. “Why do you do that?”

The wheels of the rolling stool squeak as I start rocking, twisting side to side hoping that'll burn off whatever this is crawling under my skin. “Do what?”

“Cut down this place,” he says, softly. “Cut down yourself.”

If I'm honest, I don't got a clean answer. I know I run my mouth about this town and about myself, but half the time I don’t even hear it. It’s static at this point. White noise I’ve gotten used to.

Suppose it makes things a little easier. If I talk enough shit about this town, maybe it won’t sting so bad that I’m still here. Maybe if I say it out loud someone’ll hear me and agree, and then I won’t feel so goddamn alone.

But I don’t tell him any of that.

I sigh. “I don’t know.”

“You do know,” he says.

My body’s bracing for something that never lands. That old tension, coiled up tight in my shoulders like I’m waiting to flinch.

I’m not used to people calling me out. Definitely not someone who sees straight through me.

I take a long pull from my Coke like it might help, but it’s warm and flat and useless. All it does is remind me how rattled I am.

He chuckles like we’re just two old friends shooting the shit. “I grew up in a place like this.”

That makes me turn without thinking, and when I meet his eyes it damn near brings me to my knees. The shop light’s too harsh, makes 'em look muddy, but there’s still gold flecks in there dancing around.

“In the Panhandle. Freeport, FL,” he says, finishing his drink and tossing the can aside. “I spent my whole life wanting out. Praying I could get somewhere else. Somewhere with more people like me.”

Those amber eyes meet mine and I can see whatever thought he’s working through sitting heavy on his soul.

“Like us,” he says.

There it is. The truth I’d been waiting on finally spoken out loud. It doesn’t knock the wind out of me. It fills me up instead. Like air rushing into a space I didn’t realize was empty.

“I moved away the second I could,” he says, gaze still steady on mine. “The day after graduation I packed a bag and got in my car and drove to the other end of the state.”

He leans back a little, fingers still wrapped around the arm of the couch as if it’s grounding him.

“I found what I was looking for, I guess. Tons of people and noise and this sense that I wasn’t weird or wrong or some... joke. It was good. It is good.”

The words are soft and honest and they don’t need anything more so we just let them hang there.

“But there’s something about places like this… something about the kind of silence they leave behind. It clings. You can be long gone and it doesn’t really let go. You carry it. Like static.”

He pauses, taking a long look at the worst parts of the shop. The cracked concrete floor, the busted carts piled with junk, the flickering lights that never fully wake up.

“I just don’t get it,” he says fingers scratching lazily at the back of his scalp. “Why tear down the place that made you?”

Can’t argue with a voice that gentle and steady. It lures me out and pulls under like a riptide. By the time I notice, I’m already long gone.

“I mean, I get it. I do. God, I spent years resenting where I came from. Wanted to rip it out of me like it was something toxic. But it’s still part of me. The way I talk, the way I carry myself, the way I love… even the way I fight. All of it comes from that place.”

Those eyes find me again.

“It’s like blaming your reflection for the mirror. It’s not always pretty. But it’s still yours.”

Maybe if I hold myself together hard enough I won’t fall apart from the way he just opened himself up and, without even meaning to, cracked something wide open in me too. But arms crossed tight across my chest give me away, no matter how casual I try to look leaned back on the stool.

“Joke’s on you,” I say, trying to keep it light. “I don’t like my reflection much either.”

“Why not? Can’t imagine not enjoying the view when you’re that good to look at.”

I open my mouth then think better of it and take another swig of Coke instead, because the last thing I need right now is to say something stupid, or worse, something honest.

“Something to say, Mack?”

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” I mutter, not meeting his gaze.

“Why not? You don’t believe me?”

His face is open in that unafraid way that makes my chest ache because I hate how much I want to believe it. How much I want to sit beside him and how much I want him to want that too.

The stretch of silence that follows feels heavy bearing down on me kinda like the air right before a storm breaks. Must be the pressure cause it makes me wanna say the dumbest, truest thing I’ve said all night.

“I don’t think I’d survive it if you kissed me and didn’t really mean it.”

If I thought that last stretch was uncomfortable, it’s got nothing on silence like this.

It presses in on me until I feel like I’m drowning in it.

My throat goes tight and dry so I finish off my Coke just for the moisture.

I crush the can to keep my hands busy like that might do something to break the tension of the moment.

When I toss the can toward the trash without looking, it hits the rim and drops in with an echo that is too loud for how quiet it is between us.

Andrés clocks every small movement I make.He doesn’t tear his eyes away from me once.

He’s leaned back on the couch with one foot on the floor, the other pulled up, leg bent in an L. His arm’s slung lazily over the back, but there’s tension in it now. In every bit of him. Once he gathers his thoughts enough to speak, it comes out soft, almost careful.

“How many men have done that?”

I blink. “Done what?”

“Kissed you and not meant it.”

The breath I let out feels like it takes some part of me with it.

“Every one I’ve ever kissed.”

There’s a tightness in his jaw. He lets out a sharp breath through his nose and when his eyes meet mine the softness is gone.

“Sit on the couch, Mack.”

Something must flicker across my face because he’s already pushing forward to rest his elbows on his knees He’s got this look on his face that I wouldn’t turn down even if I wanted to.

“I figured you’d run. Hell, the chase tonight’s been half the fun, but we’re past that now. So either you come sit on this couch, or I’m coming to you.”

The command in his voice is electrifying. My body feels weak and tender as a chill races down my spine causing goosebumps to follow until they overtake every inch of my skin with a feeling so intense it locks me into place.

I try to tear my gaze from his, but my body betrays me instinctively knowing I’d never forgive myself if I missed whatever this is turning into.

All night I’ve tried to convince myself this wall I set between us was about playing it safe, but truthfully I’m scared half to death.

Between his eyes on me and the steady thump of my heart against my chest, I don’t know how to drown out the fear so I stare at the stained floor hoping it’ll just open up and let me crawl out of this.

It doesn’t though. Just like me it stays hard and unmoved.

My chest’s too tight. My breathing too erratic. I don’t know what to do with the fact that someone wants me.

I’ve had quick things. Desperate things. Backseat things and gas station parking lot things. I’ve had hands that took and mouths that stayed closed and people who left before I remembered how to say goodbye.

I’ve never had someone tell me straight. No guessing. No games.

Here I am. Come get it.

That’s so goddamn scary.

Because what if I screw it up? What if I lean in and he changes his mind? What if he doesn’t? What if he means it?

What the hell do I do with that?

I stand before I even realize I’ve made the decision.

My legs have never been this shaky. Not in a way that felt real like I might actually keel over, but right now, every step makes them feel more like Jell-O. I’m not even sure I’m gonna make it to the couch.

Somehow I make it the five feet and sink into the space beside him. My limbs are suddenly stiff and unsure and struggling to keep up with the rest of me, but his gravity’s strong, and without thinking, I shift toward him cause we both know I don’t really have a choice.

“Can I touch you?” he asks, already reaching toward me.

I don’t hear whatever sound manages to leave my mouth, but I must give him some kind of affirmation because suddenly his hand is on my back tracing slow circles between my shoulder blades

“I’ve wanted to feel my hands on you since you stepped out of that truck,” he says.

“Do you do this with a lot of guys?”

“Not really, no.”

“So why me?”

There’s a moment where I expect him to hesitate. To reach for a lie so he can tell me whatever he thinks I want to hear, but his answer comes almost instantly like he never even considered saying anything else.

“You look like a storm cloud and I’ve always been drawn to thunder.”

“Leave it to the city boy to say the smartest, most romantic thing I’ve ever heard,” I mutter barely holding myself together.

“If you want,” he says hushed and coaxing, “I’m down to keep saying things like that for the rest of the night.”

I do want that.

I want to hear every word. I want to hoard them and tuck them away for when I’m alone again so I can remember someone once looked at me and thought those things.

“You gotta let yourself, Mack,” he says.

Hollowing out a little, I flick a hand between us. “I don’t know how to do this. I haven’t?—”

My head’s a mess. All I can think about is every fumbled touch, every time it felt like I was a thing to use, not someone to want.

“I’m not a… I don’t know that I’m very good at whatever this is.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “I’m patient and I’m a very good teacher.”

“I want it,” I say, voice barely above a whisper.

He doesn’t crowd me as he moves in, but he’s close enough to make the air hum. That cologne of his is sharp and citrus and a reminder of how different our two worlds really are. I might not be breathing right, but I don’t need to. Not when he’s this close. Not when he’s looking at me like that.

“We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” he says gently. “But… I don’t think I can walk away from this night if I don’t kiss you the way you deserve to be kissed.”

He’s giving me a look that holds every single thing I don’t know how to ask for.

I want to stop pretending I don’t care when all I’ve done since he showed up is fall apart in quiet little pieces hoping he’d notice.

“Okay,” The sound scrapes its way out. “You can kiss me.”

And I mean it. God help me, I mean it.

He nods, slipping his fingers around the back of my neck and guiding me forward, pulling me down between his legs until my whole weight settles on top of him.

His citrus scent is so much stronger now that we’re tangled up. I breathe deep, trying to memorize it. I want this smell burned into my brain. I want to be wrecked by it every time anything close to it passes me on the street. I want it to mean him.

The featherlight way his fingers trace my skin make me feel like I’m something worth handling gently, even now, even like this.

I plant my hands on either side of his head, caging him in, and start to lower myself.

It’s timid, but he doesn’t rush or pull. He lets me set the pace.

When I finally close my eyes and press my lips to his I see everything.

The whole world opens up behind my eyes. Bright and endless. Possibilities I didn’t know I was allowed to want spelled out on his lips.

He lets my tongue slip past, and when his meets mine, I break open in ways I’ll be feeling for days. Every defense I’ve ever built crumbles without a fight.

I chose this and I would give anything to choose it again.

And again.

And again.