Chapter 8: No Touching Unless I Start It

I could not sleep.

The house was quiet, with the stove ticking and the lake slapping the dock.

Around midnight I came out in my grandfather's flannel shirt and underwear.

Russ was sitting up on the couch in the dark with a blanket across his knees.

He was not asleep either.

"Is it true?" I asked.

"Is what true?"

"That you walk out on everyone."

He took a while to answer.

"I left home at nineteen and never came back," he said. "My mother said I'd be sorry."

"Were you?"

"Not for a long time. I was sorry on Saturday, when I watched her hit you and you said thank you."

"I thought you laughed."

"I laughed because you stayed standing."

I crossed the room.

I stopped in front of him with the firelight on my bare legs.

He looked up at me, and his eyes went down once and came back up to my face.

His hands stayed on the blanket.

They were fists.

"Rule one," he said, very low. "You start it."

"I know."

"I'll sit here until you do."

I set my knee on the couch beside his hip.

Then the other.

His breath went out of him, and I put my mouth on his.

He tasted like coffee and the cold air from the porch.

For one second he did nothing at all.

Then both his hands took my face, and he kissed me back so hard that my knees gave.

I shoved the blanket away.

He pulled the flannel up over my head, and I let him.

His mouth went to my throat and my collarbone.

He took my nipple between his teeth and drew on it until I cried out.

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