Page 19 of On the Run
He looked dubious. “I didn’t go to college.”
I rolled my eyes, then shut them firmly. “You’re missing the point. You know what? Just go. Please shut off the light and close the door on your way out so your murder cat can’t get back in. One attempted castration is enough for an evening.” I pulled the blanket to my chin. “Castration. More like cat-stration, am I right?” I snort-giggled tiredly at my own joke.
Beale sighed, and I heard him move toward the door, and that was all for the best. I didn’t know him, and I sure as fuck didn’t need him, and hadn’t I just promised myself earlier that I wasn’t gonna make a fool of myself for a hot, muscle-bound guy ever again?
In the whole sea of my troubles, this one idiot acting like I had simultaneous leprosy and pink eye wasn’t even the tiniest drop of—
The door shut with a click, and only a second later did the light switch off.
I held my breath as Beale got into the far side of the bed, and the relief I felt was a sign of how very tired I was.
“I’m sorry if I seemed rude,” he said as he settled in. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Slept?”
“In a bed. With someone else.” He hesitated. “Except the summer I spent off island at Adventure Camp. But that… wasn’t like this. Platonic.”
My eyes popped open. I wanted very much to ask what his experience at Adventure Camphadbeen, because that might be the kind of adventure I could actually get behind, damn my overwhelming natural curiosity.
Instead, I sniffed and admitted to the ceiling, “I don’t have experience with it either.”
“Really?” Beale sounded bizarrely eager. “I sort of figured you would.”
I shrugged, though he couldn’t see me. “When I sleep with men, I don’tsleep-sleep with them.”
“Oh.”
I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. Yet I somehow knew he wasn’t sleeping, either.
“So… do you have a boyfriend?” I demanded. I cursed myself for an idiot the second the words were out of my mouth. “I only ask because if someone’s going to show up tomorrow demanding a duel to restore your honor, advanced warning would be nice.”
“No boyfriend,” he said softly. “No duel.” He sounded like the most innocent of innocents, which should have been grossly unappealing.
It wasnot.
“Excellent—”
“But I’d still like to keep things platonic. I don’t… know you.”
Part of me wanted to laugh at the very idea of knowing someone before fucking them, but then who the hell knew what life for a gay man was like on an island where people were so old-fashioned they had keys to each other’s houses and let random strangers inside?
Besides, this big dude could have thrown me out to sleep in the yard, and instead he’d offered me… tea.
“Fine. I’ll stay on my side if you stay on yours,” I promised, holding up my pinkie finger over the mound of blankets in the center of the bed. “Pinkie swear.”
He huffed out a breath, and a second later, his hand rose, too. The moonlight through the blinds turned our skin the exact same shade of silvery white. He wrapped his enormous pinkie around mine, and the contact made me shiver.
“Pinkie swear.”
4
Beale
Czarina’s StarCharts for Today:
Not everything isas it seems, Virgo. Sometimes a setback is the best way forward. The Universe has big plans for you.
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