Make a Move

by Meika Usher

  Leaning over her, I pulled open the drawer and located the foil packet. As I tore it open, Birdie fumbled with my button fly and shoved my pants down my hips. In what was surely a severely clumsy and un-sexy move, I flopped over to my side and shoved them the rest of the way down, kicking off my shoes and socks as they went.

  And then there we were. Naked and in her bed, her lying beneath me, eyes glazed with desire, me with a condom in my hand. We were really gonna do this. It was happening. And I—

  Fuck.

  What if it sucked? What if, after all this build-up, all the anticipation, I disappointed her? What if I was awkward and clumsy and came too soon and—

  “Nate?” Birdie whispered, reaching for my hand. “Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking and kiss me.”

  So I did. Leaning down, I braced my elbows on either side of her, and I pressed my lips to hers. She kissed me back, and it was gentle and reassuring. Slowly, never moving her lips from mine, she took the condom from my hand and reached between us, rolling it onto my length.

  “Now,” she whispered, her hand firm around me. Then, kissing me deeply, she guided my cock into her.

  I sank in, inch by slow inch, until we were one. Birdie’s gasp filled my mouth, and I froze, a thousand sensations bombarding me all at once.

  She was hot, so hot, around me. And tight. Immediately, the pressure started low in my stomach, warning me to hold steady, or it would be over all too quickly. And so I kissed her some more, pulling back, then rocking forward just enough to keep her from realizing how close I was. But then she moaned, arching her hips into me, pushing against me, and lightning flashed behind my eyelids.

  “Fuck,” I whispered against her lips. “Birdie.”

  “Nate,” she whispered back, wrapping her legs around my waist, pulling me in deeper. “You feel so good.”

  Her words were like an inferno blazing deep in my abdomen. I groaned, burying my face against her neck. And then I eased my hips back and thrust forward, claiming her heat with my cock again.

  “Yes,” she whimpered, nails digging into my back. “Like that.”

  And that was all the encouragement I needed. Gripping the sheets tight on either side of her head, I thrust again, and again, reveling in the way her thighs tightened around my waist, in the way she lifted her hips to meet every thrust, the way my cock pulsated and sparked inside her.

  I was going to come. There was no stopping it.

  Sinking my teeth into the space between her shoulder and neck, growling as I thrust faster. I squeezed my eyes shut, determined not to come. Not yet. Not until she—

  “Fuck,” I groaned, shards of light flashing behind my eyes as the orgasm ripped through me. Gritting my teeth, I sank into her one last time, and I held on. I held on as the spasms eased, and as Birdie dropped kisses over my shoulders and cheeks. And then she pressed her lips against my chest, against the thundering beat of my heart, and I held on tighter.

  Because, in that moment, in that tiny speck of time, I could feel it.

  I’d fallen for her.

  I rolled onto my back, squeezing my eyes shut.

  I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t bear to see the disappointment I knew had to be clear on her face. Couldn’t stop the guilt from eating me inside out. Because one thought rang loud above everything else:

  I should have told her.

  36: Birdie

  I’d never believed in waiting for anything. If I wanted it, I went for it. Some people called it impulsive, but I just...never saw the point in holding out.

  Until now.

  Lying there, beside Nate, only the sound of his ragged breathing and the pounding of my heart, the words worth the wait echoed in my mind. Nate had been worth the wait.

  I stretched leisurely and my body rang with pleasure. No. Something more than that. Contentment. Happiness.

  A long sigh left my lungs as I let myself sink into the bed. It had been different with Nate. I wasn’t just a body to him. I’d been just a body for so long. And, yeah, I’d done that to myself, but still. It felt good to be more. To mean more. To want more.

  And, oh, I wanted more.

  I glanced over at Nate again. I wanted to roll over, to curl my body into his, and listen as his breath steadied. I wanted soft kisses and whispers and fingertips along my spine.

  But he hadn’t moved a millimeter since rolling onto his back. Surely, he would soon, right? Surely, he’d roll over and pull me to him. Surely, everything was fine.

  ...right?

  Anxiety crept into the corners of my mind where contentment had once laid claim. What if it wasn’t fine? What if he hadn’t enjoyed himself as much as I had? What if I’d been too eager or too aggressive or too...Birdie for him?

  What if he regretted it?

  The thought crystalized inside me, cold and sharp. I couldn’t take the silence anymore. I needed to know. Rolling over, I studied his profile. “Nate?”

  He blinked as if he’d forgotten I was there. Which would be insulting if I let myself think about it too hard. So I didn’t.

  A smile touched his lips, but barely, as he looked my way. “Yeah?”

  “Everything okay?” I tried my best not to sound like I felt inside: insecure and afraid. Afraid that he was over there thinking about how this had been a mistake. I had been a mistake.

  Finally—finally—he rolled onto his side and pushed the hair away from my face. I leaned into his touch like a flower leaning toward the sun. “Yeah,” he replied, but the look on his face wasn’t what I’d been hoping for. Shadows crept into his eyes as he leaned in to kiss my forehead. “Everything’s perfect,” he said.

  I laid my hand over his, still on my face. “You sure?”

  “Positive,” he replied, another barely-there smile on his lips. Then, he dropped his hand from my face and moved away. “I’ll be right back.”

  The air was cold when he left the bed. Even colder when he crossed the floor and walked out the door. I shivered, suddenly very aware of my nakedness, and pulled the blanket over me.

  I listened as he made his way to the bathroom and closed the door behind him, sinking deeper into the bed. This was...not what I expected. Not from Nate. Pretty much every other person I’d slept with, sure. But not Nate.

  As I waited for him to return, I searched my mind, trying to understand where things took a turn. I replayed everything, from the moment he showed up, to the moment we landed here, in my bed, to the moment he held me tight as he—

  I sat up. Was that it? Was that the reason for his distance? Was he embarrassed by how soon he’d—

  Nate walked back into the room just then, naked and nervous. A rush of sympathy flowed through me. Sweet, unsure Nate. I pushed to my knees and crossed the bed to meet him as he approached. He had to know I didn’t care. That it didn’t matter to me. That I still wanted him.

  “Hey,” I said, looping my arms over his neck.

  “Hey,” he replied, and his arms wound around my waist and held tight. For a moment, the fear and worry quieted as he relaxed into me. And then he inhaled, and every molecule of tension was back in his body. Pulling back, he searched my face. “Birdie,” he started, and the fear came roaring back. “I’m—”

  “Listen,” I cut in, falling to my knees on the bed. I linked our fingers together and held his eye. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “It was our first time, and there was a lot of build-up.” The words rushed from my lips in a desperate need to reassure him. To tell him he shouldn’t be embarrassed. “Of course it wasn’t gonna last long. I—”

  I froze as I caught the flash in his eyes.

  Shit. Wrong words.

  “Not that it didn’t last long enough,” I backtracked, squeezing his fingers tighter. “It’s just, you seemed...disappointed. And then I started thinking, and I remembered last night, when you said you didn’t want to be a two-pump...and you weren’t. You weren’t! It was good, Nate. It really was
. I just—”

  “I think I’m gonna go,” he said before I could finish. He pulled his hands from mine and turned, rifling through the mess of clothes on the floor. The room was dark, but I would bet anything there was a flush of scarlet on his face.

  “Nate,” I said as I reached for him again. My stomach churned with regret and uncertainty. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s all right.” He shook out his pants and pulled them on, not even glancing my way. “I know you didn’t.”

  “Do you, though?” I climbed off the bed and grabbed the first thing I could find from the floor, pulling it on. I couldn’t have this conversation naked. “Because you won’t even look at me.”

  At that, he glanced up. The hall light caught a glimmer of something familiar in his eyes. Familiar because I’d seen it every time I tried to get closer, to touch him. To breach the distance he kept putting between us. And it felt like a stake to the chest.

  I thought we’d bridged that distance.

  “Birdie,” he started, his fist tightening around the t-shirt in his hand. He swallowed, and I could feel the tension radiating off his body. And when he met my eye, when he finally met my eye, the torment I saw there knocked the breath right out of me.

  “What is it?” I reached across the distance, grabbing his arm. “You’re killing me, here.”

  He looked down at my hand, and his gaze lingered there for a long beat. I watched his jaw clench and unclench. I watched his shoulders rise and fall with a long, labored breath. And I watched as he seemed to fight some inward battle he hadn’t yet vocalized. But when he looked up again, the storm in his eyes had dissipated.

  “I’m just...really tired,” he said, taking my hand in his. “I’m gonna get going.” Then, he pulled on his shirt, stuffed his feet into his shoes, and backed toward the door. “I’ll call you. Okay?”

  “Oh...okay,” I responded, my arms dropping to my sides.

  I sank to the bed as he left, listening to him walk down the hall and through the living room, until, finally, the apartment door closed softly behind him. “What the fuck was that?” I whispered to no one, my eyes grazing the empty room. They lingered on the tangled sheets and displaced pillows of my bed, where I had opened up parts of myself that’d been closed off for an eternity before. In those moments, with Nate, I could feel it—something new and scary and real. And I’d wanted it. I’d wanted it bad.

  But maybe I was the only one.

  Exhaling, I pulled my gaze away. Across the room, I caught sight of a single framed piece of artwork. I pushed to my feet and walked to it, taking in the intricate-yet-disgusting details my sister had put into the zombie version of me. Reaching out, I traced a finger over the ragged, ravaged heart in my chest.

  “I think you were wrong about this, Sun,” I murmured as my real heart hammered unevenly behind my still-intact ribcage. “I think you were very wrong about this.”

  37: Nate

  “‘Bout time you dragged your ass home,” Anya said as I kicked the door shut behind me a while later. “Thought I was gonna have to send a search party.”

  I tossed my coat onto the back of the couch and headed for the kitchen without replying. I was not in the mood for Anya commentary. I wasn’t in the mood for anything. Yanking the fridge open, I grabbed a beer, and as I rifled through the drawer for a bottle opener, I tried not to picture Birdie’s face when I left her place tonight. I tried not to recall her words. I tried not to feel the things I’d felt back there.

  Well. At least the beer would help with that last one.

  Probably deserved to feel, though. No, definitely deserved to feel. I deserved the razor-sharp guilt that twisted in my gut like barbed wire. I deserved the acrid burn of regret in my chest. Because, fuck, I was an asshole.

  I should have told her.

  The words echoed louder with every minute as I drove away from her place. I. Should. Have. Told. Her.

  Goddammit.

  “You gonna offer me one of those, or what?” Anya leaned against the doorway, arms crossed over her oversized Moose and Squirrel t-shirt, brows lifted in curiosity.

  “You know where they are,” I said as I pushed passed her.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said, grabbing my arm to stop my escape. “Where’s your sense of hospitality?”

  I leveled her with an unamused glare. “You leave the bathroom door open when you pee and you wanna know where the hospitality is?”

  She shrugged, zero shame on her face. “At least I close it for the twosies.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered, turning away again. “I’m going to bed.”

  “The hell you are.” Anya stepped in front of me. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I tried to move around her, but she cut me off. “I just wanna shower and then sleep.”I ground my teeth and exhaled through my nose. “I have the most annoying friends on the planet.”

  Anya ignored the dig. “You showered before you left. You’re not usually a two-shower-a-day kinda guy.”

  I said nothing. Instead, I took a long, soothing swig of beer.

  Her gaze sharpened. “Nathaniel Kim,” she said, her fingers wrapping around my arm. “Have you been deflowered?”

  Fucking hell. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have right now. Ideally, it was a conversation I never wanted to have. But that wasn’t an option. Anya would never let it drop.

  At my silence, she squealed. “Tell. Me. Everything.” She paused and gave me a once-over. “After your shower.” Taking the beer from my hand, she steered me toward the bathroom.

  I tried to prolong my shower in the vain hope that Anya would fall asleep waiting. I should’ve known better. Not five minutes in, she was pounding on the door, telling me to hurry. Resignation settled over me. There would be no avoiding this.

  Turning off the water, I climbed out and toweled off, wondering what, exactly, I would tell Anya. Knowing full-well what I’d tell her.

  The whole damn ugly truth.

  After pulling on sweats and a t-shirt, I joined her in the living room, where she sat cross-legged on the couch, face eager. “Sit, sit,” she said, motioning to the other corner. “I brought snacks.”

  “Seriously?”

  She shrugged. “Hey, I’ve been waiting four years for this.”

  “Yeah?” I grumbled. “Try waiting thirty-one.”

  A look of horror crossed her face. “God, I could never.” She patted the cushion. “Now, sit. Drink. Talk.”

  I took the beer she offered and sat on the edge of the couch, staring hard at the condensation on my bottle. “I’d really rather not talk about this.”

  “Fuck off,” Anya shot back. “I want to know how it feels to no longer be the oldest virgin in Port Agnes.”

  I threw a glare her way. “I doubt that was true.”

  She waved me off. “Details.” She pulled her legs onto the couch and turned to face me, eyes narrowing. “You’re real cranky for someone who just got laid.”

  Just got laid.

  Just got laid.

  Something in the way Anya boiled down what happened between Birdie and I to such crude words settled over me like a cloak made of porcupine quills. It was more than that. It was a lot more than that. And I...

  “I didn’t tell her.” I sat my bottle on the coffee table and stood, shoving my fingers through my damp hair. Glancing back at Anya, I clarified. “Before we...I didn’t tell her.”

  “So?” Anya said, unfolding her legs to drop her feet to the floor.

  I frowned. What did she mean, so? “I should have.”

  “Why?” Anya frowned right back at me. “It’s not like you’ve got some incurable disease or something. You were a virgin.” She shrugged. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “I—”

  “Did you ask her about her sexual history?”

  “Well, no. But—”

  “Then don’t worry about it.” She grabbed the bowl of popcorn from the coffee table and settled into the couch, shoving a handful
into her mouth. “Your sexual history—or lack thereof—is no one’s business but yours.”

  I stared at Anya for a long, quiet moment. Could it really be that simple? Was I required to tell Birdie I’d never been with anyone else? Anya was right—I never asked Birdie about her past partners. And she’d never asked me about mine.

  “To be completely honest,” Anya continued around another mouthful of popcorn. “She probably knows, anyway.”

  At that, I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “Well.” She swallowed and washed the popcorn down with a long gulp of beer. “I’ve had a virgin or two in my day. It’s kinda hard to miss.”

  I sank onto the couch, dread cold in my stomach. “You think?”

  “God, yes.” Her eyes widened. “The awkward fumbling, the clumsy thrusting—if they manage to get it in at all.” She snorted. “Oh yeah, and the thirty seconds to blast-off. It’s like—”

  She stopped abruptly when she looked my way. “Oh, shit,” she said, reaching out to squeeze my arm. “I’m sorry.”

  I stared at the pattern in the rug beneath my feet, mortification slipping through my veins like ice water. Of course it wasn’t gonna last long, Birdie had said. And it hadn’t. Thirty seconds to blast-off, indeed.

  “Look,” Anya began, and I forced myself to look up. “That happens to lots of dudes. Dudes that have had a thousand times more sex. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Yeah?” I grumbled. “How do you feel when it happens to you?”

  “That’s beside the point,” she replied, hugging the popcorn bowl closer to her.

  “Uh-huh.” I knew full well how she felt, because she’d told me. I lost track of the number of times some hookup became the ass-end of a joke because he’d come too fast. And now I’d be the ass-end of Birdie’s jokes.

  My face flamed at the thought. I could never look her in the eye again.

  “That’s different,” Anya was saying when I tuned back in. “I didn’t give a shit about those guys. This chick seems to care about you. It wasn’t just sex.”

  I didn’t respond. Didn’t know how to respond. Instead, I cradled my beer and fell back into the sofa. Anya sank back beside me and rested her head on my shoulder. “It’ll be all right, Chewy,” she said, using the nickname she’d given me years ago. Chewy, as in Chewbacca. “It’ll be better next time.”