Page 21

I’ve had countless Saturday mornings in this motel. Routine’s always the same. Wake up with a headache. Recall barely half the night. Juni sometimes wakes up on the floor, always rolling out of bed somehow during the night. Then we stumble across the street half-dressed to the diner around noon to enjoy a cheap breakfast.

This isn’t like those Saturdays.

I wake up exhilaratingly refreshed. Birds practically sing in my ears as I yawn, stretch, and rise from the bed like a sultan. And standing at the counter is Bridger, already awake and dressed, trying to figure out the coffee machine. He turns when he hears me stir. “Can’t for the life of me get this stubborn thing to work.”

“Don’t bother,” I tell him, wiping my eyes with the back of my fists. “There’s a place across the street that’ll do it for you.”

His forehead screws up in that cute way it does. Then he says, “Do they have French toast?”

Ten minutes later, we’re seated in a booth by the window at that diner across the street, and Bridger learns they do. Delicious French toast, at that. A sweet old lady in a purple apron who could be anyone’s grandma has already served us coffee and juice.

“Every weekend since you guys met?” he asks me after a slurp of his coffee.

“Just about,” I confirm.

“Friday night clubbing, Saturday morning stack of pancakes, Saturday night round two, then Sunday morning in time for Trey’s service?”

“Well, when I don’t gotta work,” I clarify. “Like last Saturday. Duncan needed a shift covered at the gas station last minute, and thank God he did ‘cause otherwise … well …” I chuckle, thinking about it. “Can’t believe it’s been just a week since we met.”

Bridger nods over his coffee. “Longest week of my life. You’ve been a downright menace to deal with.”

“Speak for yourself,” I throw right back with a laugh. He goes for another sip of coffee, smirking. I cross my arms on the table and lean in. “Fuckin’ glad I decided to put up with you, though. I’d go through it all again if I could have a repeat of last night.”

“Including the premature—?”

“There wasn’t anything premature about anything last night,” I cut him right off. “I nut when I intend to nut, and I intended to nut precisely when I nutted.”

Of course I say that entire sentence the moment after our nice aproned grandma has returned with our orders, not having seen her standing there. She sets down our plates in front of us, smiles sweetly, and says, “I didn’t quite catch that, hon. Did you say you’d like a side of nuts with your pancakes?”

Bridger snorts into his coffee, causing it to splash at his face.

“No, thank you, ma’am,” I say flatly, wincing. She leaves us be to enjoy our breakfast. I kick Bridger under the table, which only results in making him laugh harder.

He sure ain’t laughing when he digs into his delicious, fluffy French toast. The guy barely puts on any syrup, which is a damned crime, and he shows next to nothing on his stoic face as he chews, but I know he’s having three orgasms in his mouth right now, savoring each and every bite. I feel a pinch of pride, watching him, applauding myself for bringing him to this secret breakfast spot. I cut off a huge bite of pancake and shovel it in, satisfied.

He gazes at me across the table. “So you want a repeat?”

I freeze mid-bite. “Huh?” I mumble through my mouthful.

“Last night. You said you’d want to … do it again?” He pauses. “With me?”

I finish chewing. It takes a minute, giving me time to think. “Well … I mean … yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean …” I use the edge of my fork to cut off another bite, then stop and set it down for some reason. “I … enjoyed last night. A lot. Who the hell wouldn’t? And yeah, I meant what I said. I’d … I’d totally go through another week of hell just to enjoy a night like last night all over again.” I look down at my pancakes with a smile. “Though … maybe it’d be better without the week of hell.”

“And you liked spending it with me?”

I squint at him questioningly. “What’s this emphasis on you all about? What’re you gettin’ at? Are you askin’ …?” My voice lowers. “Are you askin’ if it could’ve been … just anyone I took back to my room last night?”

“That’s precisely what I’m asking.”

I sit back in my seat, staring at him across the table. He hasn’t taken another bite. This answer is really important to him.

I suddenly realize it’s really important for me to give it, too. “No,” I state harder than I mean to. “It couldn’t have been just anyone. Obviously. You crazy? It was you who … who made the night what it was. Who made me feel the way I did. Only you.”

I watch Bridger’s jaw tighten from my answer.

Then his lips curl up, his eyes filling with a superior glint of confidence I’ve gotten way too used to seeing all week. Except this time, it bothers me a lot less. In fact, it doesn’t bother me at all. It brings me joy, to see him flush with confidence at my answer.

“See?” I blurt, picking my fork back up. “I can say nice shit. I’m a nice guy. Just needed to give me time to prove it, you jerk.”

He chuckles under his breath and shakes his head as he goes for another bite, resuming his tasty breakfast.

Then it occurs to me to ask the same thing. “What about me?” I lean forward, fork in hand. “Could I have been just anyone? How many other questioning virgin guys have you slept with?”

“I don’t sleep with virgins.” I frown at him, confused. He eyes me. “It’s a rule I always followed. I just never felt like I deserved to take anyone’s virginity. Didn’t want to ever be the one to shoulder such a responsibility.”

“Until … me?”

“Until you,” he confesses with a sigh. “You’re the first. Only.”

I blink, stunned. “But … why me?”

He chews his next bite with thought. After a smile to himself, he says, “I’ll tell you once I figure that part out,” and winks at me.

I stare back at him. What the fuck does that mean?

The front doors swing open, the bell rings, and in come Pete and Juni. They find us at once and make a beeline for our table. “I am fucking famished! ” exclaims Pete with way too much energy, dropping into the seat next to Bridger, shoving him aside. Juni sits next to me, uncharacteristically plain with no makeup, wearing an oversized t-shirt and shorts. “Boy, oh, boy, am I hungry,” she says as well, then looks at each of us. “Did we interrupt something?”

Bridger and I share a look across the table. He gently taps my foot underneath and smiles at me. I smile blankly back, lost in so many damned thoughts all of a sudden, I don’t know if I’ll be able to swim my way out of them.

Juni picks a funny sweater off a rack with eggplants all over it. Pete laughs his ass off as he holds it up against himself. She loses it next, cackling until there’s tears in her eyes. The two go through rack after rack, each item they hold against each other cracking them up more than the last. On the other side of the store, Bridger and I watch them. “I’ve never seen her laugh so much,” I mutter to Bridger, who was in the middle of checking out a simple button-down shirt on clearance. “The hell is up with them?”

It’s like this at every store we go to. Juni has this glassy look of imminent laughter in her eyes, always, which turn giggly and silly every time she gazes at Pete. I don’t know Pete all that well, but despite their bouts of laughter and stupidity, he suddenly becomes a prince whenever we cross the street, checking both ways before guiding her with his arm, all chivalrous and shit.

It’s not just him. Later, the four of us walk through a park, and as a kid skateboards by, Bridger puts his arm around me and pulls me to his side, even though I was well out of the way of the fast skateboarder. He even eyes him, halfway to shouting at the kid to slow down. “I’m not some fragile piece a’ glass,” I grunt under my breath, but Bridger hears me and, still holding me tight against his side, replies, “You’re right. You’re my fragile piece of ass .”

Those words scramble up my brain, locking my mouth up. I can’t seem to respond to that at all. Maybe that’s the point .

Between Juniper and Pete’s inseparable giddiness and Bridger with his overprotective demeanor, I feel totally outside myself as we stroll through the park in this weird city. Maybe it’s being out of Spruce for the weekend that has me feeling like someone else. Like I’m capable of being anything I want out here. Anyone I want. No one looks twice when I’m dancing my drunken ass off at the club or falling on my face. No one bats an eye when the four of us are guffawing over something stupid Pete does or a funny sound Juni makes when a random duck starts chasing her near the pond.

I wonder what happens when we go back home.

Back to Spruce.

To reality.

“But, like, this is reality, too,” says Juni, sounding her dreamy self, as we stay back to watch Bridger and Pete go to the edge of the pond to feed the ducks. The guys are teasing each other, being funny, taunting one another with the bread and snide remarks we don’t hear. “It doesn’t have to go away when we leave.”

“Things just aren’t the same back home,” I mumble. “With my parents. My dad in particular. The way everyone looks at me. Even Trey sometimes, like he’s got these hopes and dreams in his eyes, hopes and dreams I’ll never live up to. It’s annoying.”

“At least you have people hoping and dreaming for you.” Juni sighs. “I can’t remember the last time anyone expected anything from me. Other than my deadbeat dad expecting me to spot him for another fix, whatever drug he’s on lately.”

“Pete’s probably expecting lots of things from you,” I point out just as he happens to turn around, glance at us, then smile at Juni suggestively, making a face I think he thinks is sexy, but just looks weird as fuck.

Juni, however, eats it up. “Mmm, yeah,” she sighs, delighted.

Then I realize those expectations likely have to do with how she plans to tie him up, or spank him, or gag him, or whatever else those two were up to last night.

“By the way,” says Juni, turning to me, “Pete told me Bridger hasn’t had a boyfriend since before his first tour.”

I frown at her. “What? Boyfriend? Huh?”

“Bridger acts all big and strong, but maybe he’s lonely, too.” Tiny hearts flutter in her eyes. “So sweet. And now he’s got you to squeeze at night.”

“Slow down, slow down,” I say through a laugh. “We just had sex last night. I’m still figurin’ myself out. We’re not a thing yet.”

“Oh, me too, me too,” Juni assures me. “Pete’s just a fun thing right now. But, like, also we’re gonna marry someday.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s either a hundred miles an hour or no miles an hour with you.”

“At least I’m fun,” she says, then bats a fly away with sudden violence, startling herself.

We stop somewhere for lunch, seated at a picnic table outside by the street under the shade of a huge striped umbrella, Bridger and I on one bench, Juni and Pete cuddled on the other sharing two halves of a sub sandwich. By now, Bridger and I have gotten used to the lovebirds, and the four of us seem pretty much aware of this unexpected bubble of lovey-dovey peace we’ve managed to create around us—a bubble that feels so invincible and sure, not a damned thing can hope to pop it.

It’s early evening. The pins burst at the end of the lane when Pete scores another strike, earning an explosion of applause and whistles from Juni. I’m biting my lip as Bridger, with his sexy jeans and tight butt, struts up to take his turn. The way he bowls is so by the book, preparing the ball, seeking its holes, positioning it just right, assuming the pose, then doing the perfect walk with the ball swinging back in a calculated arc before releasing it. It rolls with deafening thunder, then crashes into the pins with perfection—but only knocks down seven, leaving him a split. I’m finishing up a basket of mediocre fries we were sharing, foot bouncing in place. Bridger cleans up with a spare. I applaud, cheering him on loudly, then watch him strut back to his seat next to me.

While Juni takes her turn, I lean into him. “You looked so hot up there, takin’ charge of that lane, makin’ it beg for mercy.”

“Is that what you call barely scraping together a spare?” He chuckles. “Look at Pete, wiping up the floor with us, all of those strikes in a row. Didn’t know he was a closet bowling prodigy.”

“Or a closet kinky dude, huh? Unless that’s all Juni.” We both glance their way. Pete is giving Juni pointers at the lane, but it’s fairly obvious the two are just flirting, probably cracking juvenile jokes involving finger holes and balls. “They’re cute together.”

“We’re cute, too.”

I look at him. “We?”

Bridger’s face tightens. “Well, I mean …” He gazes off. “Never mind, nothing.”

“What?” I snort. “You enjoyin’ your time with me a little too much? Is your heart singin’ songs, dancin’ around like a schoolboy with a crush when I’m not lookin’?”

“Bet yours is,” he mumbles, then returns his bright blue eyes to me, smirking cockily.

It’s my turn to frown and look away. “Shut up.”

“It’s okay to enjoy this, y’know. Our day out together.”

“Who said I’m not enjoyin’ it?” I pick out a crispy fried bit out of the basket, all the actual fries eaten. “Just doesn’t mean we’re, like, an item now or anything. Not like them , at least.”

“Why not like them?”

“I dunno.” I crunch on the bits while picking out another.

Bridger scoots closer to me on the bench and puts his arm on the chair behind my back. “What do we need to do differently to be more like them? Want me to bend you over my knee and spank the shit outta you?”

I nearly choke. “The fuck got into you, Bridge? You never talk like this.”

“Your foot’s bouncing in place.”

I stop my foot. “Was doin’ it since before you took your turn.”

“You nervous about something?” He comes in even closer. “Is it because you’re wondering how it’ll feel? To have my hand slap that ass of yours with all my strength? I’ve got a lot of reasons to spank you, y’know. You’ve been a pretty bad boy since we met.”

“You’re demented,” I mumble as I slurp on my Coke.

“One spank for every reason. And add up everything you’ve done to me over this past week? You’d be lucky to have any ass left when I’m through.”

“You seem pretty obsessed with spankin’ me. Maybe you’re the weirdo here.”

“I haven’t forgotten when you copped a feel in that Tackler Monster costume. Yep,” he says when I set down my Coke a bit too hard. “I think you’re enjoying all of this more than you’ll ever admit out loud. I make you nervous. For the first time in your life.”

“Maybe I make you nervous, too.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” I turn to him. His face is surprisingly close. “For the first time in your life, you’re breaking all your rules for a guy you just met seven tiny days ago.”

Bridger’s face loses all its smugness.

It’s replaced with something real. Something softer, like all of his walls just crashed down, we’re no longer playing around, and he’s fully attentive to my every damned word.

“I think you like me,” I go on. Despite how confident I sound, my heart is pounding something fierce. “You’re talkin’ a big game, but it scares the shit outta you, what’s goin’ on with us. Crackin’ jokes about spankin’ me silly, but the joke’s on you. You like me.” I get close enough to kiss him, the breath of my words brushing his lips. “And you don’t got a lick of an idea what to do about it.”

Bridger’s eyes melt in front of me.

I guess that did the trick.

“Dude!” shouts Pete, spreading his arms at us. “You guys just missed Juniper’s first strike!”

We break from each other, looking up to find Juni doing a little victory dance, arms flailing in the air, with Pete glaring at us like we’ve done him the worst offense. When Juni crashes into him to claim a spontaneous victory kiss, all of Pete’s anger fades, and the two become lovebirds again, making out on their stage, while Bridger and I watch, blank-faced, lost in our own feelings.

None of the words I said at the bowling alley are on our minds a few hours later when we hit the club for the second night in a row. There’s no damned drama at all as the four of us let loose on the dance floor. The day has glued us together, and now it’s all of us who crack each other up, laughing like we can’t help ourselves, inventing new dance moves, and being ridiculous. It feels like the four of us have been best friends our whole lives.

Every time the song changes, Juni shouts that it’s her favorite one. Pete picks up on the pattern and starts doing the same, every single song, and it becomes their inside joke. I learn pretty quickly that Bridger is a terrible dancer, but instead of making fun of him, I keep tugging on his arms and getting him out of his own head. He resists me a few times, laughing it off or shaking his head, but I grab hold of him, bring him close, and point at my eyes—“Just look at me,” I order him, “and nothin’ else. Just me. You and I. Let it all go, Bridge. Don’t hold nothin’ back when you’re with me.”

Those words seem to resonate the deepest.

Don’t hold back with me .

The four of us make it safely back to the motel after midnight. For a little while, the adjoining door between our rooms is left open, and all four of us are enjoying drinks in one room, chatting about all the fun shit that went down at the club, including a guy who apparently hit on Pete at the bar—which gave Pete one of the biggest confidence boosts of his life apparently, as he had never “properly been hit on by a real gay dude at a real gay nightclub”, and now he’s happy to cross that off his list. Then we relocate to the other room and eat up everything Juni just got after emptying out half of the vending machine.

It’s nearly two in the morning when Pete notices a text that was sent to him hours ago. “Just Cody telling us not to rush back in the morning for church, to enjoy our night out.” He hiccups as he drops his phone on the bed, then draws a cross over his chest for some reason. “Thank God for having a priest for a husband.”

“Reverend,” corrects Juni, “and if we’re not gonna head back early in the morning, then maybe we can watch that movie I told you about earlier.”

Pete’s eyes grow big. “Uh, yeah,” he agrees in a funny voice. “That movie. You and I. Are gonna watch. Tonight.”

Bridger and I share a look. I assume they’re talking in code.

There’s no movie. The two want to have some happy time.

“Watch your movie,” I tell them, taking Bridger’s hand as we head for the adjoining door, then stop. “But y’know … maybe keep the movie quieter than it was last night. Walls are paper thin.”

Juni smiles with giggling eyes. “Maybe adjoining rooms wasn’t the best thought-out plan. Our movie … might get a little loud.”

I snort back a laugh before pulling shut (and locking) the door between our rooms. The moment it closes, it feels like the party—and our very long day—has come to an end.

But unlike the ends of my days in Spruce, which are spent alone on a bed or couch in the dark, Bridger stands next to me.

It feels like he belongs right here.

Next to me at the end of a long day.

Bridger gazing into my eyes, adorable, patient, devoted.

Me, staring right back, nervous for some reason.

Neither of us say anything.

I think we both realized that for the first time since breakfast this morning, we’re alone again.

“Want to take a shower?” he asks me.

I snap out of it. “Yeah, sure, I’ll go in first.”

“I meant together.”

My eyes meet his again.

I don’t need to think about it long. “Yeah. Let’s … do that.”

Bridger comes up to me. He is gentle when he pulls my shirt up over my head. Then he undoes my pants and helps me step out of them. I return the favor, undressing him piece by piece, like a birthday present. It isn’t the most romantic shower, nor is it the prettiest bathroom. But it just goes to show that no matter where you are in the world, it’s never about the place or the suspicious stains in the sheets or the weird cracks in the walls.

It’s about who you’re with.

The guy who treats you like a piece of glass.

And a piece of treasured ass.

Who washes your back under the stream of warm water. And washes your hair, too, his fingers gently combing through, making you fucking crazy with tingles of pleasure.

The guy who kisses you unexpectedly.

Holds your slick, soapy body against his with all the strength in his powerful body.

Who looks into your eyes so deep, he can touch your soul.

Every kiss is a fucking surprise, making me believe I will never get used to how amazing they feel. Every touch of his fingertips on my sensitive skin, brushing over my nipples, grazing under my arms, sliding down my hips, caressing my ass cheeks and causing me to shiver with pleasure.

“You wanted a repeat of last night?” he whispers in my ear.

“Yes,” I beg him, nearly a whimper.

The wall of the shower gets used to my weight as I press up against it, Bridger behind me, and I feel him teasing me with his fingers, sliding in and out, as he discovers new ways to torture me that leave me gasping with pleasure. The shower can’t contain my moans as Bridger shows me all the ways a man can please another man without even sticking his dick inside. I’m flipped around over and over, my back against the shower wall, and then my stomach, Bridger’s face in front of me, then the wall. His lips are on me, and then his fingertips.

It’s like a dream, each moment more vivid and crazy than the one before, all of them blending together, like a slideshow of every secret desire I’ve always been curious about, but never let myself believe could be mine someday.

It honestly blows my mind.

How much I’ve denied myself my whole life.

Telling myself what I don’t deserve.

What I can’t possibly have.

What’s possible or not possible.

Then Bridger breaks into my life with a splash of gasoline all over me. I should’ve known something was up. The very first thing he ever did was try to get me out of my clothes by soaking them.

When we’re back on the bed, Bridger fucks me just as hard as he did the night before. But this time, we’re facing each other, and he’s close enough to kiss me.

Something has changed in him from last night. The way he looks at me. The dedication he’s given to me all day, making sure I’m tended to and taken care of. Even in the shower when we both lost control, I felt so fucking safe.

Safer than I’d felt in my whole life.

And who the hell would think, after all our wild sex in and out of the shower, that the sweetest reward would come after, when he cuddles me naked in bed, holding me tightly against his body, kisses the top of my head, and whispers, “Goodnight, babe.”

Babe. He called me … babe .