Page 16 of A Little Christmas! Johnny
I heard Russel leave and figured that Dexter would be sleeping in after he was still up at three. Yeah, I heard him come home. I’m a light sleeper, especially with shared spaces. I’m always on edge, wondering when someone’s going to barge in and wake me up anymore. For the last six weeks, I’ve been surviving on power naps between the shifts where I knew the guys weren’t going to come upstairs for anything. Even then, I never slept for more than four hours at a time.
Does sleep deprivation cause hallucinations? I think I saw that somewhere. I mean, I got the same amount of sleep that I usually do, but that doesn’t explain why Dexter is now in Russel’s kitchen smiling at me in a stained t-shirt that says “Ask Your Daddy.”
My brain flashes to Russel’s room and I feel like I’ve entered some sort of an alternate dimension. It’s like how inA Wrinkle in TimeorCoralinewhere everything is just slightly wrong enough to give you the squigglies without being able to put your finger on it. I just hope this isn’t a bad thing like it was in those stories. I don’t want to be eaten.
At least... not like actually eaten for dinner. My little guy perks back up at the thought of Dexter eating his fill in another way, and I feel the blood rush to my face when the Dexter hallucination smirks in response to my twitching traitorous penis.
So... probably not a figment of my imagination then.
“You look like you should still be in bed, Johnny.”
Apparently all of the blood in my body can’t decide if it wants to go up or down, but one thing for sure is that it’s not going to my hands when the mug of cocoa slips from my fingers to shatter on the kitchen tiles.
“Shit!” I crouch down to start picking up the shards when Dexter’s voice booms through the kitchen.
“STOP!”
My hands freeze and he hauls me off my feet, carrying me to one of the chairs at the dinette set in the corner. After I’m seated, he lifts each of my socked feet, removing the now chocolate soaked fabric. I don’t understand why. I’d rather step in cocoa than used motor oil again. Mike made me get a tetanus shot after that oopsie early in my days at the shop.
“Did you burn your feet at all? Let me see your hands. Did you get cut?”
My noggin finally fires on all cylinders and I realize he’s making sure I didn’t hurt myself with the broken mug. I thought he was mad at me for breaking the mug and making a mess. My body relaxes now that I know I’m not in trouble. One good thingabout it was that my dick has finally realized that now is not the best time to be playing peek-a-boo with the sexy neighbor.
“The cocoa was lukewarm at best after being outside,” I murmur while he turns my hands over, checking them for injuries. “And my hands have so many callouses that even if I got cut, it would have to go deep to really hurt me. Life of a mechanic, ya know?”
My shrug doesn’t appear to do anything to reassure him, but he turns over my right hand again, rubbing the pad of my thumb with his. It’s not until he smiles to himself and moves away to grab the broom and dust pan that I realize what’s different about my right thumb. As a mechanic, I have crud pretty much permanently embedded in my hands, but I take extra care to scrub my thumb completely clean because of my predilection for putting it on or in my mouth when stressed.
Does he know I suck my thumb? No way. Why would he even think of it?
Maybe he thinks I like to stick it up my butt or something? I mean that’s another reason to make sure it’s really clean. Yeah... butt stuff. That’s why my thumb is so clean, not because I suck it like a little baby when I sleep heavy.
“As much as I appreciate the thought of you doingbutt stuff,Johnny, I figured you use your thumb as a comfort action, and I’m perfectly fine with that as long as you really do make sure it’s clean before you do it every time.”
Did he justread my mind?!
Dexter lets out a bark of laughter and drops a bunch of paper towels on the floor to soak up the cocoa spill.
He CAN read minds!!!
“Relax, Cupcake. Your inside voice just isn’t staying inside this morning. You’re kind of mumbling all of your thoughts.”
Oh. My. God.
Mortification doesn’t even come close to explaining the level of embarrassment I’m feeling. I’m sure the color I’m turning can rival the red of my beloved candy canes.
Dexter ruffles my hair before returning to the task of cleaning up my mess. Part of me wants to send him out so that I can have my freak out, but a bigger part is wanting to seek out more of that warm fuzzy feeling I got from him the other night. I’m kind of getting a bit of that feeling right now. I know I’m more than capable of cleaning up the broken mug and cocoa spill, but for the first time in a very very long time, someone is actually doing somethingforme. I like this feeling even though it makes me feel a bit guilty.
“You don’t have to do that,” I mumble when the guilt basically makes me. “I was the one who made the mess. I’m a grown man. I don’t need anyone to clean up after me.”
Dexter tosses the paper towels in the trash can under the sink... Huh, so that’s where it is... My thoughts about the location of the trash receptacles and the fact that I don’t have to go outside every time I have to throw something away is distracting me from the gorgeous man washing his hands – those amazingly soft hands...
My brain is still going off on all kinds of tangents. I need to finish waking up.
This is why I have projects: the cars, the house, my job, the Legos. If I don’t focus on something, my mind spirals through so much that I eventually end up forgetting things that are important like bills or appointments or commitments.
Commitments...
Shit! Peanut!
