Page 79 of Lemon Crush

Was it because I was set in my ways, or because I didn’t trust myself not to get the bug like my father? That selfish, shiftless bug that had been fine with abandoning the people who relied on him in exchange for instant gratification and the freedom to not give a shit.

“Your turn.”

She was framed in a soft halo of light with her hair down, wearing feminine boxer shorts and a shirt that hung off one shoulder with the words Pobody’s Nerfect stretched over her full, unbound breasts.

I couldn’t be more fucked if she’d come out stark naked.

Heading blindly into the bathroom, I closed the door behind me with a solid thud.

Not tonight.

I ran my hands under the cold tap and splashed the back of my neck, then took off my shirt and hung it on the door hook next to her bra.

Give me strength.

“Only until she falls asleep.”

After that I’d get up, walk back to the apartment, get into my own bed and take myself in hand until the urgency passed.

It had to pass eventually.

The lights were off when I joined her again, but it wasn’t pitch dark. I could see the garden lights through her window. My door. This was her view?

“Wade?” She was lying on her side facing the center of the bed, her back to the window.

“I’m here, Gus.”

I took my boots off before lying back carefully on the mattress beside her. Over the covers again. Head against a pillow that smelled like August.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, hoping she’d take the hint and pass out before I forgot to do the right thing.

“I was planning to get you here for an entirely different reason tonight.”

My cock flexed against my jeans at her admission. Knowing we’d been on the same page only made this harder. Made me harder. “Is that right?”

“It is. You were going to be putty in my hands.”

My smile was strained in the darkness. “Another time, Gus. You’ve had a rough day and tonight isn’t the night.”

I could practically hear the wheels turning in her head. Why wasn’t she going back to sleep?

She needs a friend, not a fuck.

Damn it.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she said too swiftly to be believable. I waited in silence until she added, “I wasn’t expecting to react like that.”

She was talking about her mother’s ashes. “I know.”

“Morgan went to the street where it happened. Walked it. Even if I’d gone with her, I couldn’t have done that. I wouldn’t be strong enough.”

I reached for her hand, instinctively twining my fingers with hers. “I don’t believe that. I think you’d handle it fine.”

“Really?”

Not wanting to cross any lines, but unable to keep my mouth shut, I exhaled slowly and said, “Morgan had to see the street, thank your friend and stand in the church, because it was the tangible, physical proof she needed to process that Sam was gone. But that proof has been around you for nearly two years, hasn’t it? You live here, work here, the view from your window is the first and last thing you see every day… Italy might be where she left, but this was where she lived. After handling that, I think you could take on anything.”

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