Page 29 of Live for Me

“No one said you had to.”

“But I also don’t know how I could justnottell him, Utah.”

“That’s why you’re upset?” he asked.

I about choked trying to keep in the fresh wave of sobs that wanted to burst out of me.

“Can we just go home?” I pleaded.

He let go of my leg and we were headed back toward Indiana right after that. In a moment of unprecedented levels of madness, I raised the center console that was between us and unbuckled my seatbelt. I scooted my way right into that middle seat to lay my head on Utah’s shoulder.

I couldn’t work up the nerve to look at him, but I was touching him, dammit. Just because he felt good and everything about him made me feel better.

He shifted to reach across me for the middle seatbelt to buckle me right back in and I turned my entire face into his shoulder as soon as he was finished.

“Daddy Utah, indeed,” I giggled and shook my head.

I glanced at him just long enough to watch him smirk, but I lost all my nerve and looked back into my lap when his gaze shifted to me.

His hand went right back to my thigh, though. And it stayed there that time. With a very dangerous thumb dragging back and forth across the width of my leg while, his other four fingers found a home on the inside of that thigh. I spent a second being grateful that I was wearing jeans because my skin probably would’ve melted from whatever fire-inducing magical friction his thumb possessed otherwise. I thought really hard about getting brave again. I tried to tell my hand that all it had to do was inch its way forward until it was sitting on top of his.

My heart tried to tell my brain that that one little move could be all it would take to wipe out a decent chunk of the lifelong loneliness.

But my brain reminded my heart that that one little move could also complicate things to a level that might never be reversible if Utah were to realize I was messed up beyond repair.

I wondered how nice it might be to be able tounderthinksomething just one fucking time.

I started using my index finger to scrape off the edges of the nail polish on my thumb and focused all my energy on that instead. When that wasn’t working quickly enough, I shifted that thumb to my teeth to start chewing it off. Until Utah chuckled. His hand abandoned my thigh, grabbed the hand I was busy trying to cannibalize, placed my palm on my own leg, and dropped his hand on top of it to hold mine there. All while I just stared at both our hands.

“What do you want to cross off that list next, angel?”

“What list?”

“The things you missed out on.”

“We don’t have time for that, Utah.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. We have too much to do and too much to figure out as it is. We can’t afford to waste time on things that don’t matter if we have the opportunity to bust a sex trade.”

“Giving you the chance to experience life isn’t wasted time.”

“I’ve experienced plenty of life.”

“Alright, sasshole, giving you the chance to experiencethe good thingsin life isn’t wasted time. You don’t have to be difficult just for the sake of being difficult, you know? There’s no rule. You can just let me be right when I’m right.”

“And when youareactually right, I will let you be.”

It made me smile to hear him breathe in so very deeply through his nose.

“Memphis, you precious, sweet little pain in the ass gifted to me straight from Satan, pick the next thing off that list. Or I will choose it for you.”

“Nobodygiftedme to you. Satan or otherwise,” I laughed.

“I swear I will pull this truck over and just make you dance with me again until. You. Pick. Something.”

I wiggled my hand around under his until he raised it just enough for me to flip mine over so our palms were touching, and I could lace my fingers between his.

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