“That’s good. Open your door.”
“What?”
I knock and repeat, “Open your door, Lucy.”
“Caleb? Did you send me—” The knob turns, and the door opens, and the look on my beautiful girl’s face is worth every second of that flight.
“Oh my God. What are you doing here?”
I drop my bag and spread my arms. “You said you needed a hug.”
I don’t get the hug I traveled a thousand miles for because she starts crying again, but she leads me into her dorm, so I can’t complain. It’s cold as fuck outside, but considerably warmer in here.
I take my jacket off and hang it on the hook next to hers, then plant myself right next to her on the couch. “Lucy Amanda Alvarez, you need to stop bursting into tears around me. You’re giving me a complex.”
“Fuck you,” she retorts, wiping the tears with the sleeve of her oversized Henley—the Henley that used to be mine. I get an odd sense of satisfaction that it’s the shirt she wears when she needs comfort. “I’m a crier, and you know this already. And I love that you’re here. This is literally the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. But…you came all this way and I feel like garbage and I feel even worse because we can’t have sex and—”
“Whoa.” I hold up my hands. “Two things. First off, I came all this way to give you a hug. That’s it. You had a shit day, and I could make it better, so I did. I didn’t come here for sex, Lucy.”
“But—”
I shake my head and hold her hands in mine. “I’m serious. I always want to be close to you. I always want to be naked with you. I always want to be inside you.” She opens her mouth to protest, but I’m not done. “The only reason we can’t have sex is if we don’t want to. Your body doing what it was fucking designed to do has no bearing on whether we have sex or not. But more importantly, Lucy? Sex is not currency. Ever. I didn’t fly up here to get some. I flew up here because you needed me, and I always need you, and I have a spare forty-eight hours.”
Lucy pulls a blanket from the back of the couch and curls up into me.
“I was leaving class and you were telling me about your shit-tastic day, and I was thinking how I wanted to do what Ty and Knox do when Phoebe and Willa have crappy days. I wanted to make it better. I wanted to give you a backrub or watch a movie marathon or whatever. So, it’s six hours later, and here I am. But, baby, you need to know that it wouldn’t matter if I’d walked the 947 miles on foot. You don’t owe me sex. You can call me into bed, be lying there naked, and not owe me sex. Because that’s not how sex works, you hear me? I’ll say it again: sex is not currency. And you should listen to me because I’m not just a pretty face.”
Finally, she smiles.
“It goes both ways, you know?” A laugh bubbles up from Lucy’s sweet face, but I keep going. “Seriously, Lucy Eugenia. Picture it: I’m 97 and I just fell and broke my hip doing some new TikTok dance. Now, they probably won’t call it TikTok in seventy-five years, but just stay with me, ok? So, I fall and break my damn hip, and we’rewaiting for the ambulance, right? And to soothe my pain, you offer me a blow job. While I will appreciate the gesture, I’m going to turn you down. Nothing personal, Lucy, but I just shattered my goddamn hip, and it fucking hurts. No nookie until the ambulance arrives, no matter how sweet and dirty your mouth is. You need to respect that. The ambulance will show up, they’ll give me the good stuff, and you can suck me off until your heart’s content as they drive my sorry ass to the hospital.”
“You are ridiculous.”
I am ridiculous. And I’m making up scenarios right now that will never happen, because even though I’m here, and I love her, I know we’re never going to happen. I know a future for the two of us is impossible, but I’m shaking Lucy out of her funk, so I keep going. “You laugh, but that might end up being the biggest fight of our relationship—even bigger than when I kick your ass at strip poker and win the naming rights to our children.”
“I can kick your ass any day at poker,” she tells me.
“You better hope so, or your firstborn is going to be named after an 80s rock legend.” I lean down and kiss her forehead. “Seriously, though, Lucy, we have sex when and if we both want to. And if you think your menstrual cycle will dissuade me from wanting to do depraved things to you, then you don’t know me very well. Now, if it skeeves you out, it’s a no-go. But it sure as hell doesn’t bother me. It’s a natural lubricant, and sex is a known muscle relaxer.” All of this talk of sex has my cock hardening in my pants. Or maybe it’s the fact that Lucy’s mouth is dangerously close to my dick. Either way, the result is the same.
* * *
Lucy
I wake up on the couch, my body curled around Caleb’s. He’s naked and I’m wearing nothing but his shirt. Swiping my phone from the end table, I see that it’s 2:37. Though I love sleeping next to him, I’m feeling gross and restless, so I head for the shower. The heat and the steam and the warm spray always relax me and clear my mind.
I’m combing conditioner through my hair and that’s when it hits me: Caleb Whitman is my boyfriend.
It doesn’t matter that we live a thousand miles apart.
It doesn’t matter that he’s the life of the party and I’d rather organize the party than actually attend it.
It doesn’t matter that I’ll be focused on my career for the foreseeable future.
It doesn’t even matter that my dad is married to his mom.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve been too scared to admit it.
He calls me every day. He’s my favorite person. He dropped what he was doing to sit in an airplane for hours just so he could give me a hug.
