November 9: A Novel

I made sure to lock the door before getting into the shower. Not that I wouldn’t want to take a shower with him, but I’m just not at that point yet. To me, showering with someone registers higher on my scale for potential humiliation than most things, including sex. At least with sex I’ll be hiding under the covers in the dark.

Sex.

I think about that word. I even roll it around on my tongue as I rinse the conditioner out of my hair. “Sex,” I say quietly. It’s such a weird word.

The older I get, the more apprehensive I become at the thought of losing my virginity. On the one hand, I’m ready to experience what all the fuss is about. It has to be great or it wouldn’t be such a huge factor in the lives of all mankind. But that also scares me, because if I end up not liking sex, I’ll be a little bit disappointed in mankind as a whole. Because it seems to be the root of a lot of evil, so if it’s mediocre and I don’t instantly want more of it, I’ll feel a little misled by the entire world.

Perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic, but whatever. I’m too nervous to get out of the shower, even though I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair several minutes ago. I have no idea what Ben’s expectations are for tonight. If he wants to sleep, I would totally understand. He’s been through hell and back this week. But if he wants to do something besides sleep, I will absolutely, without a doubt, be a willing participant.

After I dry off, I pull his shirt over my head. I look in the mirror and admire the way it hangs off my shoulders. I’ve never worn another guy’s t-shirt before, and I’ve always wondered if it felt as good as I imagined it would feel.

It does.

I pull the towel off my head and run my fingers through my hair a few times. I take Ben’s toothpaste and squeeze some onto my finger and then rub it in my mouth for a minute. When I’m done, I take a deep, calming breath, and then I turn out the lights and open the door.

His lamp is on and he’s lying on the bed, facing the center of it, with his hands tucked beneath his head. He’s kicked his covers onto the floor and is wearing nothing but his socks and a pair of boxers. I stand here and admire him for a moment, since his eyes are closed. He might actually be sleeping, but it doesn’t disappoint me at all. Tonight’s for him and him only, because I know he’s hurting. I just want to help him while I’m here, so if he needs sleep, I’ll do what I can to ensure he gets the best night of sleep he’s ever had.

I walk to the lamp and switch it off and then pick his covers up off the floor. I gently sit on the bed and cover us both as I lie down next to him with my back to his chest. I try not to wake him as I adjust my pillow.

“Shit.”

I roll over at the sound of his voice. It’s dark in the room, so I can’t tell if he was talking in his sleep or if he’s awake. “What is it?” I whisper.

I feel an arm go around my waist, and he pulls me closer. “I left the light on so I could see you walk out of the bathroom wearing my shirt, but you take really long showers. I think I fell asleep.”

I smile. “I’m still wearing it. You want me to turn the lamp on?”

“Fuck yes, please.”

I laugh and roll over toward the lamp. I switch it on and then face him again. His eyes are unmoving, yet somehow all over me.

“Stand up,” he says, lifting up onto his elbow. I stand up and his eyes never meet mine. They’re roaming over my thighs, my hips, my breasts. I don’t mind that he isn’t looking at my face. I don’t mind at all.

The hem of his shirt falls several inches above my knees. It’s just long enough to where he can’t tell that I’m not wearing underwear right now. It’s also just short enough to where he’s probably praying I’m not wearing underwear right now.

His eyes drop to my legs again and he begins to speak slowly, as if he’s reciting poetry. “The only sea I saw, Was the seesaw sea, With you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs.” His eyes drag up my body until they meet mine. “Dylan Thomas,” he says.

I release a slow breath. “Wow,” I say. “Poetry porn. Who knew?”

Ben smiles at me lazily. He lifts a finger and points at me. “I’d like to have my shirt back now.”

“Now?”

He nods. “Right now. Before you turn off the lamp. Take it off, it’s mine.”

I laugh nervously and begin to reach for the lamp. Before I’m able to turn the light off, he jumps up and walks across the mattress, hopping to the floor directly in front of me. His eyes are playful, yet somehow stern at the same time. He grabs the hem of my shirt and pulls it up without hesitation, yanking it off my head. He throws it somewhere behind him and I’m immobile in front of him, completely exposed. His eyes read every curve of my body before he lets out a shaky breath.

“Holy shit,” he mutters.

I can’t recall a single time, even before the fire, when I’ve felt this beautiful. He’s soaking me up like it’s a privilege rather than a favor. And when he leans forward and takes my face in his hands, I part my lips and wait for his kiss because I’ve never wanted it like I want it right now.

His lips are moist, and he kisses me with entitlement. His tongue is rough and unapologetic, and I love it. I love feeling needed this way. I realize, as his fingers are slowly trailing down my spine, that angst doesn’t have to be a factor for a kiss to be a ten, after all. Because angst is nowhere in this kiss, and it’s already a nine.

He pulls me flush against him, my naked chest pressed against his. Okay, it’s a ten now.

He turns us around and lowers me to the bed, but doesn’t lie on top of me. He adjusts us to where we’re side by side and my head is on a pillow, but his mouth is still on mine. Quiet, desire-filled sounds begin to leave my mouth, each one of them a direct result of what this kiss is building inside me.

I don’t even care that the lamp is still on. If it means he’ll be looking at me again like he looked at me before this kiss, I’ll let him turn all the lights on. I’d even let him install fluorescents.

“Fallon,” he says quickly after tearing his mouth from mine. I open my eyes and find him looking down at me. “We’ve read the same books. You know the rules. If you want me to stop or slow down, just . . .”

I shake my head. “It’s perfect, Ben. So perfect. I’ll tell you if there’s something I don’t want to do, or if I get nervous. I promise.”

He nods, but it still seems as though there’s something else he wants to say. Or ask. And then I remember that we’ve never really had this discussion.

“I’ve never done this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ready,” I tell him.

I feel his body stiffen, just slightly. “You’re a virgin.” He says it as more of a realization than a question.

“Yeah, but only for a few more minutes.”

My comment forces him to smile, but then worry consumes his expression. His eyes grow immediately sober and his smile falls into a grim line. He shakes his head softly. “I don’t want to be your first, Fallon. I want to be your last.”

I take in a quiet rush of air as his words sink in. He’s not even kissing me, and those words just made this moment a twelve. I touch his cheek with the tips of my fingers and smile up at him. “I want you to be my first and last.”

Ben’s eyes darken and then he slides his body over mine, caging me in with his arms. I can feel him hard against me and I try not to whimper. “You can’t say things like that unless you mean them, Fallon.”

I meant it with everything I am. For the first time, I realize that I don’t care about the five years. I don’t care that I’m not twenty-three. All I care about is Ben and how I feel when I’m with him, and how I want so much more of this. “I want you to be my only,” I say, my voice quieter, but with more resolve.

He winces as if he’s in pain, but I know by now that’s a good thing. A very good thing.

He brushes his thumb over my lips. “I want to be your only, Fallon. I want it more than anything. But it’s not happening tonight unless you promise me that I’ll be able to hear your voice tomorrow and every day that follows.”

I nod, surprised we’re having this conversation. I wasn’t anticipating this at all when I got on that flight this morning. But I know it’s right. I’m never going to meet anyone who makes me feel the way he does. People don’t get this lucky more than once in the same lifetime. “I promise.”

“I’m serious,” he says. “I want your phone number before you leave in the morning.”

I nod again. “You can have it. I want you to have it. And my email address. I’ll even go buy an all-in-one printer with a fax machine so I can give you that number, too.”

“Baby,” he says, his lips forming a smile. “You have already made this the best sex I’ve ever had, and I’m not even inside you yet.”

I bite my lip as I run my fingers up his arms, dragging them up his neck until I’m cupping his face. “What are you waiting for?”

He drags in a raspy breath. “To wake up, I think.” He lowers his mouth and kisses my neck. “I’m dreaming, right?”

I shake my head, just as he moves his hips against me. A moan escapes my mouth and the gentle kiss against my neck grows wilder.

“Definitely dreaming,” he mutters. His mouth meets the base of my throat and he touches the tip of his tongue to my skin, dragging it up my throat until he’s kissing me again. It’s by far the sexiest thing I’ve ever felt.

Seconds turn into minutes. Fingers turn into hands. Teasing turns into torture. Torture turns into unimaginable pleasure.

His boxers have met their fate on the floor. In an insurmountable display of willpower, he’s pressed against me, but still not inside me.

“Fallon,” he whispers, dragging his lips slowly across mine. “Thank you for this beautiful gift.”

As soon as his words brush over my mouth, he covers me in a deep kiss. My whole body tenses from the burst of pain that ripples through me as he pushes inside of me, but the perfection of the way we fit together makes the pain a mere inconvenience.

It’s beautiful.

He’s beautiful.

And somehow, with the way he’s looking down at me, I even believe I’m beautiful.

He presses his mouth against my ear and whispers, “No combination of written words could ever do this moment justice.”

I smile between moans. “How are you going to write about it, then?”

He kisses me, softly, right on the corner of my mouth. “I guess I’ll just have to fade to black . . .”

• • •

I’m not sure if sex is supposed to make you feel like you’ve just lost a part of yourself to the person inside you, but that’s exactly what it felt like. It felt as if the second we joined together, a tiny piece of our souls got confused and a piece of his fell into me and a piece of mine fell into him. It was by far the single most intense moment I’ve ever shared with another person.

I feel a warmth creeping up my face like I want to cry, but I keep the tears at bay. I just know that there’s no way I can tell him goodbye after this. It’ll tear me apart, way worse than last year. I can’t go another day without him being a part of my everyday life. Not after this.

His arm is wrapped around me, and even though it’s been several minutes and he’s already been to the bathroom and crawled back into bed, he’s still breathing like he was just inside me a matter of seconds ago. I like this part of sex, I think. The aftermath. The quiet. Still feeling connected after the physical connection is no longer there.

His lips meet my shoulder—the scarred one—and he places the gentlest kiss against my skin. So soft and thought out, it feels like so much more than just a kiss. It feels like a promise, and I’d give anything to be able to read his mind right now.

“Fallon,” he whispers, pulling me closer to his side. “You know all those romance novels you made me read for research?”

“I only made you read five. The others were of your own accord.”

He runs his nose along my jawline until his lips are at my ear. “Well,” he continues, “I was thinking about some of the things those guys say when they’re with a girl. The ones we said we’d never say? Like when a guy tells a girl he owns her? I know we’ve laughed about it before, but . . . holy shit.” He pulls back and holds me captive with an intense stare. “I’ve never wanted to say anything like I wanted to say those things to you while I was inside you. It took everything I had not to.”

I never thought a sentence could make me whimper, but it absolutely does. “If you did . . . I wouldn’t have asked you to stop.”

He drags his lips across my cheek until he reaches my mouth. “I’m not saying those things to you until you really are mine.” He wraps his arms around me, cradling me against him, begging me without words for whatever it is he’s not saying. I can feel it. The desperation.

“Fallon,” he says, his words strained against his throat. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you when we wake up.”

His words carve a hole right in the center of my heart. “You’ll have my phone number this time. You can call me.”

“Every single day?” he asks, hopeful.

“I’ll be mad if you don’t.”

“Twice a day?”

I laugh.

“Can I see you every day?”

I shake my head, because that one isn’t really possible. “That’ll be kind of expensive,” I say to him.

“Not if I live in the same city as you.”

My smile immediately disappears. Not because that sounds unappealing. But because that’s not an innocent remark. People can’t just threaten to move across the country for someone if they don’t actually mean it.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “What are you saying, Ben?”

He rolls onto his side again and props his head up on his hand. “I’m thinking about selling the house, if Ian is okay with it. According to Jordyn’s mother, she’s moving back home. Kyle is gone. Ian is never even here. The only person I want to be near lives in New York. I wonder what she would think if I moved there.”

I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. As much as I know we need to talk about this without the rush of sex clouding our minds, I can’t think of anything I want more than to see him every day. To have him be a part of my life.

Except for one small detail.

“What about the book?” I ask him. “We’re supposed to meet up three more times. Don’t you want to finish it?”

He contemplates my question for a short moment before slowly shaking his head. “No,” he says simply. “Not if it means we can’t be together.” His expression doesn’t falter.

He’s serious. He actually wants to move to New York. And I want him there more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

“You’re gonna need a jacket.”

His smile transforms his entire face. He reaches a hand up to my cheek and traces my jaw, brushing his thumb over my lips. “And they lived happily ever after.”

• • •

Yesterday evening when he opened the door and I saw him for the first time in a year, I could see the pain in every single aspect of him. It was like the death of his brother aged him five years.

But right now, he looks somewhat like he did the first time I saw him. Unkempt and scruffy. Adorable. Beautiful. It’s the most at peace I’ve seen him since I arrived.

I kiss him lightly on the cheek and roll off the bed without waking him. I put on my clothes and slip out of his bedroom, heading downstairs to see if there’s any cleaning I can do before I wake him up to say goodbye.

It’s almost four in the morning. The last thing I expect is to see someone in the kitchen, but Jordyn is seated at the bar.

She looks up at me as soon as I walk in. Her eyes are red and puffy, but she’s not crying. She’s got an entire box of pizza in front of her and she’s taking a huge bite out of a slice of pepperoni.

I feel bad for walking in on her. Based on my conversation with Ben, she’s wanted nothing but solitude the last couple of days. I debate walking back to Ben’s room to give her privacy. She must see my hesitation, because she scoots the box toward me.

“You hungry?” she asks.

I kind of am. I take a seat next to her and grab a slice of pizza. We sit together in silence until she finishes a second slice. She stands and takes the box of pizza to the refrigerator. She hands me a soda when she returns to the bar. “So you’re the girl Ben’s writing the book about?”

I pause the can at my lips, shocked she knows about it. No one else at the dinner table seemed to know anything about his book. I nod again and then take a drink.

She forces a smile and looks down at her hands, laced together on the bar in front of her. “He’s a great writer,” she says. “I think the book is going to be huge for him. It’s a clever idea.”

I clear my throat, hoping she doesn’t hear the shock in my voice. “Have you read any of it?”

“Bits and pieces,” she says, smiling again. “He’s really picky about which parts I’m allowed to read, but I was an English major, so sometimes he asks my opinion.”

I take another drink, just to keep myself from speaking just yet. I want to ask her about it, but I don’t want her to know that I haven’t read a single word of it yet.

“Kyle was so happy for him when he signed with his agent.” Her eyes begin to mist when she mentions Kyle’s name.

I look away from her.

An agent?

Why didn’t he tell me he signed with an agent?

“How is he?” she asks.

“Ben?”

She nods. “I haven’t really interacted with anyone yet. I know it’s selfish of me, because I’m not the only one hurting. But I just . . .”

I put my hand on top of hers and squeeze. “He’s okay. And he understands, Jordyn. Everyone does.”

She wipes a tear away with a nearby napkin. Seeing her try to hold it in creates pressure in my chest. I hurt for her, especially knowing what she’s about to face alone.

“I just feel bad. I’ve been so caught up in everything I’ve lost the past two days, I haven’t even thought about how much it affects Ian and Ben. I mean, they both live here. And now they’re stuck with a girl who’s about to have a baby. The last thing I want is for them to feel obligated to help me, but . . . I really don’t want to go back to Nevada. I can’t move back in with my mother when this is my home. I just . . .” She presses her hands against her face. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to burden anyone, but I’m scared I can’t do this on my own.”

I put my arms around her and she begins to cry into my shirt. I had no idea she didn’t want to move back in with her mother. I wonder if Ben is even aware of that.

“Jordyn.”

We both look up when Ben calls her name. He’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a distraught look on his face. When she looks up at him, she starts crying even harder. He walks over to her and puts his arms around her, so I stand up and walk around the bar, giving them space.

“You aren’t going anywhere, okay?” he says. “You’re my sister. You’re Ian’s sister. And our nephew will be raised in the home that you and Kyle planned for him to be raised in.” He pulls back and brushes the hair out of her face. “Promise me you’ll let us help you.”

She nods, wiping more tears away. She can barely get out the words thank you between sobs.

I can’t watch her cry anymore. I’m on the verge of tears myself just knowing how scared she is. I rush up the stairs and back into Ben’s bedroom, where I can gather my thoughts. So many things are running through my head, most of them fears. I’m afraid he’s making a decision out of haste. I’m afraid if I tell him how much I wish he would move to New York, he would actually do it, and it’s obvious his sister-in-law needs him here. Not to mention the possibilities he’d lose by giving up on the book. I feel the more genuine the story is, the better chance he’ll have of selling the book. Yes, I would love to start a real relationship right now, but that’s not what we agreed on in the beginning. If we just up and end our arrangement in the middle without continuing to meet up on November 9th, he’ll be giving up on what his agent obviously thought would make a great book.

I can’t believe he has an agent.

That’s huge, and I don’t know why he didn’t tell me. As much as I want to believe he’s okay with not finishing the book, I fear that he’s making this decision based on the high emotions from the last few days. The last thing I want is for him to make a choice as big as moving across the country and then regretting it after he does it. Of course I’d give anything to have him with me every day, but even more than that I want him to be happy with whatever decision he makes. I know three years is a long time for us to wait, but those three years could make a huge difference in his success as an author. The fact that our story is true might make it appealing to readers, and even though I haven’t read any of it yet, I’m convinced he needs to finish it.

I don’t want to be the reason he doesn’t finish what he started out to do. Years from now, he’ll look back on tonight and he’ll wonder if he made the wrong choice. If maybe our lives would have still turned out the same and we would still end up together, but by waiting three years, he also would have met his goal of writing the book he promised to write.

He’s made such a huge difference in my life. More than he’ll ever know. If it weren’t for him, I don’t think I would have ever regained my confidence. I know I wouldn’t have had the courage to audition anywhere. Just having him in my life one day a year has had such a positive effect on me, I’d hate myself if I did the exact opposite for him.

And none of that includes what just transpired over the last ten minutes. There’s no way he can move to New York when his family needs him now more than ever. Jordyn is going to need him here way more than I need him in New York. He and Ian are both going to need to be here for her and I refuse to be the one to convince him to leave her at a time like this.

I grab my phone and call for a cab before I change my mind.