Page 93 of Over & Out

Any number of answers would be okay with me here. “No,” obviously. But also just plain honesty. “I don’t know.”

But Hopper doesn’t blink. “Nothing about you will ever make me run.”

I study him, his glacier eyes searing icy heat into mine. I wonder if there’s some deeper message in there—that he won’t be the one to run. That shouldn’t giveme hope, but it does. Because how could I ever run away from him? Could this work between us? The thought is too big to contain. So I don’t try to. I just nod, then tap his arms to let me go, and Hopper gently sets me on the ground. About the scar, I choose to believe.

I turn around, reaching for the faucet on my freestanding claw-foot. I drop the plug in the tub, then get the temperature right, adding a chunk of the brick of solid bubble bath from my favorite shop in town. It’s the color of a rainbow, and Hopper smiles when he sees it. “Of course,” he says. “My rainbows and sunshine girl.”

The room starts to fill with steam and the sweet vanilla scent of the bubble bath.

Meanwhile, my insides fill with nerves. I’m going to do this. It doesn’t mean it’s not scary as hell.

“Can you start?” I ask. “Like, you take off your clothes first.”

Hopper doesn’t hesitate in the slightest. Of course. He’s had to be naked in front of whole studios of strangers. Somewhere on the internet, allegedly, is a grainy photo of his penis snapped from someone on set.

“You’re thinking about the penis photo, aren’t you?” Hopper asks as he peels off his plaid flannel.

I laugh out loud, the tension mercifully broken. “Maybe.”

“Have you seen the photoshopped versions?”

“Oh God,” I say. “Should I?”

“There are some good ones.” He’s already so gorgeous in just a t-shirt, the cotton stretching over the plane of his chest and thickness of his arms. But when hereaches his hand behind his back and pulls it off in one quick move?

“Holy shit,” I whisper as he lays his t-shirt on top of the hamper.

If he hears me, he does me the solid by not reacting. God, I’m embarrassing. But right now, I don’t care.

“In one of the photos,” he says, unbuckling his belt, “they gave me something I’d have to coil up like a hose to fit in my pants.”

I laugh, becauseew. “A snake dick?” Still, as he stands there with his movie-star abs, grasping his belt buckle and sliding his belt out of his jeans in one quick move, my mouth goes dry. I swear the soft slap of that sound makes me clench down low.

“Pretty much,” he says.

I must look like I’m drooling, because he says, “Wait, you like the abnormally long penis?”

“No,” I nearly choke. I close my eyes to focus. “No, that’s very strange.”

“Not as strange as the alien dick.”

I laugh softly, my shoulders shaking. When I open my eyes, he’s dropped his mud-caked jeans and is standing in front of me in his briefs. They’re simple; white boxer briefs with a thick elastic band and some designer’s name on it that could sayAlien Dickfor all I can read it right now.

Hopper pauses. “Chris, you’ve already seen it. Please don’t be disappointed. I’ve only got one normal-sized human dick.”

“Hopper,” I laugh. “Stop.”

But I my laughing dies off when he stretchesthe briefs’ elastic band, pulling them neatly over his hips so they drop to the ground.

For the second time in my life, I’m staring at Hopper Donnach naked. I know right then it doesn’t matter how many times I see him like this. I’ll never get used to it.

He’s slightly hard, like he was, but then I made him talk about snake dicks. But as he sees me staring, it grows. I see him grow fully firm just from my attention, and when I meet his eyes and see his pupils dilating like a new moon, heat floods my abdomen, shooting an ache between my legs.

“I feel so powerful,” I say. “I gave Hopper Donnach a hard-on.”

Hopper lets out a soft laughs, but it fades quickly. “Youarepowerful. You do this to me any time you look at me, by the way. It’s getting kind of awkward.”

I smile.

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