Betrayed by My Childhood Love novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: Stay

Waylon looked at me for a long moment.

"You're sure."

"I asked you, didn't I?"

"You did." He swallowed. "I just want to hear it twice."

"I'm sure, Waylon. I want you. Tonight."

He picked up the box of notebooks.

Then he took my hand and turned off the lights.

His apartment was six blocks from campus, over a tire shop that smelled like rubber up the stairs.

We didn't make it six blocks without stopping.

He kissed me under a streetlight on the first corner, with the box between us.

He kissed me again against the side of the tire shop, with the box set down on a stack of retreads, and his hand flat on the brick by my head.

"We have a static fire at seven," he said against my mouth.

"I know."

"I'm just telling you I don't care."

"I know that too."

I laughed into his kiss, and he laughed back, and I'd never heard him laugh like that before, all the way out.

He had to try three times to get the key into the lock.

Inside was one room and a kitchen the size of a closet.

A window unit rattled in the window.

There were engine manuals stacked on every flat surface, a coffee maker identical to the one in the shop, and a bed he'd built himself out of pine and bolts.

A faded quilt was folded across the end of it, blue and yellow, stitched by hand.

"My mom made it," he said, when he saw me looking. "Don't hold it against me."

"I like it."

"You're being nice because it's your birthday."

"I'm never nice."

He set the box down on the kitchen table, very carefully.

Then he turned around and looked at me.

The only light was the yellow streetlamp through the blinds, striping across him.

Nobody had ever looked at me like that.

Like I was the drawing on the whiteboard, and he'd been staring at it for two years.

I took off my new CAPTAIN jacket and let it fall on the floor.

"Your turn," I said.

He pulled the shirt off over his head before I had to ask twice.

The streetlamp stripes slid across his chest, his stomach, the dark hair under his navel that disappeared into his jeans.

I reached out and put my palm flat on his sternum.

His skin was hot.

"Boots first," I said. "You'll look like an idiot."

"I don't care."

"Waylon."

He sat down on the edge of the bed and worked his boots off.

I kicked mine off and stood over him in my socks.

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