Page 34 of The Intimacy of Skin

How could I fix the indescribable sadness that enveloped a person who wouldn’t admit to their sadness?

Crew was in my arms, our combined sweat keeping us stuck together.

His mind had traveled, though. I could see it in the way his eyes gave him away, a storm I couldn’t weather because I didn’t understand.

If I looked closely, clouds were hiding the man he kept locked up in the prison he’d created for himself. Just behind the cell bars was a man so broken, so tired, that my heart yearned to reach for the lock and break it.

I couldn’t, though.

Crew wouldn’t let me in. The few times he’d said something more —something slightly deeper than surface level, they’d been cryptic, and I’d had no success in trying to bring them up again.

We needed to clean up. I was afraid to move in case it scared Crew into clamming up even more than he was, forcing him to realize what we’d shared too soon.

I was no stranger to walking on eggshells around people. When Dad’s addiction had taken over his personality, I’d learned how to avoid his temper really quickly.

That usually meant tiptoeing everywhere and doing my best to make as little sound as possible as I existed in the space I was meant to live in. Doorknobs and cabinets had been my enemy, along with my words and choice of phrasing. The smallest thing could set him off.

With Crew, I didn’t have to worry about his anger so much as his tendency to overthink and close himself off. I was willing to walk on as many eggshells, legos, and rivers of lava as it took to get somewhere with Crew.

Taking the opportunity to nudge my face into the crook of his neck, I breathed him in as I tried to kill two birds with one stone. Distract him while I got to know him. “What’s your favorite color?”

He tilted his head, twisting a bit to try and see my face. “What?”

“Favorite color.”

“Um…”

“It’s your favorite color, not a trivia question about the Earth’s circumference, Crew.”

“Twenty-four thousand nine-hundred and one.”

My nose ran up his throat, stopping right at his jaw before I leaned back to look at him. “I’m pretty sure that isn’t a color unless you’re giving me a hex code.”

He smiled, letting go of a soft laugh that froze time. Nothing else mattered when Crew laughed. “No, it’s the circumference of Earth in miles.”

“Are you boasting?”

“No, I’m just good at numbers.”

“Mm-hmm, well, I want to hear colors. Pretty sure I already heard some from how hard your hot, tight ass made me come.” I bent back down, nipping at the edge of his bottom lip. “But I digress.”

The flush that took over his face had my heart pounding. He was so elegantly gorgeous, I was tempted to pinch myself to make sure he wasn’t a dream.

“Blue. If you want to get specific, though”—he twisted further onto his back, one of his hands reaching up to touch my cheek—“I’d say a nice light blue. It reminds me of the Arctic Ocean.”

I pushed my face into his hand, reveling in the chill of his fingertips against my heated skin. “Why the Arctic Ocean?”

The lightning crackling in his eyes threatened to strike. I watched as he looked away, pulling his hand down from my cheek. “What do you think of when you think of a glacier?”

“Um, I don’t know.” I tried to think back on the last time I’d seen a picture of one. “I guess super big, white sheets of ice.”

“Ever seen a blue one?”

Shaking my head, I shifted until I was lying on my side, facing his. Crew was looking towards the ceiling; his eyes focused on something I couldn’t see.

“There aren’t a lot of them.” He glanced at me from the side, quickly averting his gaze back to the ceiling.

“Over time, snow gets compressed really tightly. All the air bubbles get squeezed out, making this super dense ice that looks blue. The denser the ice, the more light it absorbs. The more light it absorbs, the less color we can see, leaving only blue. Pure ice takes a long time to form, so some of the glaciers are millions of years old.”

Crew turned his head, looking directly at me. We shared a moment, a gaze that went on for far too long. He was telling me something that belonged to a trivia game, but his face had fallen, his frown lines collecting dust along the crevices. I didn’t want him to frown anymore.

“Your eyes are kind of an ice blue. Do they remind you of glaciers, too?”

He shrugged, his shoulders catching on the sheet beneath us.

“I guess so. I’ve always thought I had a lot in common with glaciers.

They stay stuck for hundreds of years. All the air inside them is squeezed out, leaving them with nothing but ice crystals.

They’re cold and out of reach. Parts of them break off, floating into the unknown, lost forever, while they stay stagnant.

The existence of a blue glacier is long.

Lonely. And in the end, they lose so many parts of themselves that it’s hard to understand where they begin and where they end. ”

While he spoke, Crew had turned his head back to the ceiling. I was left staring at his side profile, his face hard set as he thought. I took it for what it was. Crew was giving me a part of his truth, explaining a deep, dark part of him that not many— if any —had seen.

It both reassured me and saddened me. My truth could walk hand in hand with his, and not a single light would shine. We both had demons, his in the delicate form of a blue glacier and mine in the form of blithering fire.

The inner part of my arm began to vibrate, an itch stirring there that crawled to my wrist. I reached out, pressing my palm to his cheek.

I turned his face, forcing him to look at me. Softly, whispering as if he’d run from anything louder, I spoke a piece of truth neither of us could deny. “I bet they’re breathtaking.”

He found my gaze, and his lips parted in a gasp. “The glaciers?”

“The glaciers, the Arctic Ocean as a whole, and every single part of you that you’ve lost or gained. Every part you show me. Every part you don’t. ”

His response was breathless. “What if they’re small? What if so much of the glacier has broken off, all that’s left is a single crystal?”

I pressed closer until our noses were touching. “I know for a fact that single crystal will shine brighter than any sun, and that one day, it’ll build and build until a new glacier will take form.”

“Even if it takes a million years?”

“Even if it takes five.”

We weren’t talking about glaciers in the Arctic Ocean. No, when I pressed my lips to his, I made sure he could feel I meant it all. With every shift of our mouths, I gave another piece of myself to him.

I could have gone all night kissing Crew. My body demanded it, craving the chill of his skin that I knew would slowly heat from lust.

But it was late, and we had to work in the morning. So, I pulled away just after the introduction of our tongues, which could justify my ever-growing need to be inside of Crew again.

I swept my thumb over his cheekbone, watching his shoulders rise and fall with his hurried breaths. “We should get some sleep.”

“Right.” Crew went to pull off the blankets to get up, but I stopped him.

“I’ll get the light. You can stay in bed.”

He looked towards the ottoman, his lip catching between his teeth. “I, um, I need something from my bag. I’ll get it.”

I raised a curious eyebrow at him, letting go of the wrist I’d grabbed.

When Crew came out from under the blankets, I was hit with another wave of pure need.

His body was gorgeous, a red flush running from the top of his chest, becoming patchier as it spread.

There was a slight curve at his waist that begged for my hands to grip them.

His hip bones were more prominent than I’d have liked, but I could fix that over time by feeding him, at least until our agreement was over.

The reminder of our time limit had my mood souring. I tried not to let it show as I watched Crew unzip his bag and pull something out. He held it close to his chest as he hurried to the light switch.

“Is that a pillow?” I asked.

He froze on his heels, turning until I could see a wince flash across his face.

“Yeah.” He held the pillow out so I could see it.

There was a familiar silk pillow sheet on it.

I’d seen it on his bed at his house. “This is Pilly, my pillow. She comes with me everywhere I sleep. Can’t get to bed without her. ”

I saw the embarrassment on his face. A smile played on my lips, too big to hide. “That’s fucking adorable. Pilly the pillow, huh?”

The room descended into darkness, quickly followed by shuffling feet until the bed dipped and Crew was back beside me.

“Shut up,” he grumbled.

Oh, I couldn’t do that. “How long have you had Miss Pilly?” I reached out blindly, trying to find the aforementioned pillow.

A hand slapped mine, a sharp sting taking its place. “You never told me your favorite color.”

Changing topics already. I shook my head in the dark, coughing through a laugh. “You just want to avoid discussing the most precious thing on Earth.”

All I got was a growl in response—a feisty one, matching a chihuahua.

“Okay, okay,” I relented. “My favorite color is orange.” The blankets shifted around me, Crew’s body following with it as he found his place in my arms. “Sounds like we’re complimentary.”

Another smack, this time to my bare chest, right next to where Crew’s cheek was lying. I howled a laugh as I cuddled Crew closer, knowing that even with the dark, I could feel his lips twist up into a smile.

I was the first to be greeted by the morning sun. A familiar heat had taken over my body, my chest pressed close to Crew’s back. I hadn’t been joking with him when I told him I ran hot.

His shoulders rose and fell peacefully, and our skin stuck together with a disgusting sheen of sweat. I wouldn’t bother being grossed out, though. Not when I found myself pressing my face into the waves of Crew’s hair, inhaling deeply like the creep I was, and sighing in contentment.