CHAPTER TEN
HEATH
"Okay. Okay. I need sustenance before this continues." Leigh rolls off me, her hair the perfect shade of rumpled. "Otherwise I'll die."
"Can't have that happen." I smack her bare ass and watch her squeal and scurry across the room for her clothes. "You don't need those."
She cocks her head to the side and I hate how cute she looks. "I'm not walking around my apartment bare-assed. I have a roommate."
"She’s not here."
“Give her a minute. She’s excellent at just showing up unwanted."
I try, and fail, to suppress a grin. "Maybe she’ll join us?"
"You're so full of shit." She laughs and pulls a dress over her head.
Everything about her looks easy. Easy to dress, easy to smile, easy to laugh. Based on her grit at Crazy Eights, I know it's not, but she sure looks it. I want that easy.
Leigh disappears down the hall, so I throw on my pants and chase after her. She squeals again when I grab her by the waist and spin her in a circle. It's a sound I want to hear again and again.
She's encircled in my arms and suddenly I don't have words for her. I'm the guy who gives all the pep talks in the locker room, but I don't have anything to say here. All I can see are her bright blue eyes, the one dimple, the small upturn of her nose. I like how bright her teeth are and the pinch of skin in her upper lip to form a sweet little pout. I like that behind all of it, there's a beautiful brain who has never once made me feel like an idiot in our tutoring sessions.
Leigh looks at me with the same sort of intensity. It's a feeling of familiarity with someone I hardly know, which screams ABORT ABORT ABORT.
"Pizza?" My voice squeaks and she laughs. I'd rather die, but laugh it off and clear my throat. If nothing else, it was a good way to break the moment. I'll just beat the fuck out of myself for that shit in the gym later.
"Maybe... maybe you should go." The intensity is gone and so is the smile. "I have to get ready for work in a few hours and could probably use a nap."
"Oh." My arms fall like lead. "Yeah, a nap sounds nice."
"Unless..."
"Unless?"
Leigh chews on her lower lip and glances at the door. The air turns chilly between us, and it's probably for the best, definitely for the best. So why do I feel like clawing at the space around us to bring it back?
"I... don't know." She doesn't look at me. "I, um, I don't usually do this, so."
"Order a pizza in the middle of the afternoon?"
"Yeah, that either." The laugh is small, but it is enough to keep her still. "I mean, we met at a bar. We got tipsy and came back here to... do all that."
"Do all that?" Now I have to laugh. I don't like the gambit of emotions spinning in my mind, so I turn back to the space I'm most comfortable: snark. "Is that what you crazy kids are calling it these days?"
"I'm sorry I'm not some super star quarterback who has a revolving door in the bedroom—"
"Whoa." Despite the smile on her face, and the very awkward nature of this conversation, I didn't like how this was turning. "I'm not a whore. I know everyone acts like I am because of what I do, but I don't just sleep with girls. Hell, I haven't had a girlfriend in... well, a long time."
"Then why?" Her eyes are as soft as her voice. "Why did you come with me when it's not something you do? Was it... was it because you were drunker than I thought?"
"After two drinks? Not at all. Maybe a slight buzz, but nothing that hampers. I wasn't drunk when I took you to bed, Leigh. Why did you take me to bed? Were you drunker than I thought?"
"No!" She shakes her head so hard her hair bounces like it did when she was riding me on top. I want to rewind the clock and just go back to that, skipping this conversation entirely. "No. I just... I had a shitty day and you were so nice and..."
Her voice dies out and we just stare at each other, in various states of undress, in the middle of her apartment. I should get my shit and go. Clark, for all his horseassery, would give me hell for slipping this close to the scout coming to town. My feet, however, decide to grow their own brains and refuse to move.
"I'm not good at these conversations, Leigh." Fucking feet. "I have a football career I'm chasing, a serious one, and I don't want to peak in college. I'm talking pro ball until my body gives out and then sit my happy ass behind a desk like Terry Bradshaw and report on games until they put me in the grave. My whole life, from the time I was three, has been football. I'm not willing to give that up."
"You shouldn't, if that's what you want." Everything about her is impossibly soft but it never looks weak. "I've wanted to go into space since I was old enough to look up and know those bright lights were stars. It's such a competitive field and I'm not going to let anything jeopardize that. Not you, not the dicks who think stars only belong to boys—"
"Seriously? Do they not know what fucking year it is?"
"Thank you!" Leigh all but yells. She finally looks at me again and the moment slowly comes back, sapping out all the air and leaving just the two of us again.
"So, you have your big dream you don't want anyone to compromise." I say.
She nods.
"And I have mine."
Another nod.
A grin splits my face. "But we both have needs. And not to brag or anything, but I'm pretty good at meeting them."
"I mean, you're okay." She teases. The way her nose wrinkles makes me want to kiss it. "I seem to know how to properly hit all your buttons, though. The faces you were making—"
"Me? Girl, Andy Warhol could have a whole series on the faces you make when you come."
"Andy Warhol? That's who you'd have paint my O face? You're such a guy."
"That Campbells thing was fucking brilliant. Don't hate it because it was beyond your level of comprehension."
Leigh stares at me in pseudo-mock disbelief and everything feels comfortable again. It's a nice comfort, one that says we can joke and talk and fuck and just... be. I've only experienced it before in fleeting moments and it was always mediocre, but this is something else entirely.
"You owe me a large pepperoni and pineapple for that nonsense." She presses her fingers into my chest and tilts her head upwards for a kiss, one I'm all too happy to oblige. "Andy Warhol. Rude."
"He uses pretty colors." I wink at her and let my fingers get tangled up in the side of her dress so she can't run off. "I'll order that monstrosity of a pizza, but I have a proposition for you first."
"Oh my god, I can't sleep with you again if you don't eat pineapple on your pizza. I have hard and fast rules, Davis."
"I'll eat whatever you want me to if it means you'll put my cock in your mouth again." I nip at her nose and revel in the way her cheeks turn read. "Let's keep doing this. I like this."
"Order pizza? Okay."
"You know what I mean." I pull her in closer and my senses are flooded with her. She smells like something sweet and heady, a mix of her perfume and sex. "It doesn't need to be anything serious. We have big shit going outside of this stupid town, and it'll be happening in just a few months. But, I like you, Leigh. I think you're funny. You... take the edge off. Allegedly, I need that to happen more often.”
She beams up at me. I could spend a whole day complimenting her just to watch her bloom like a flower in the Texas sunshine. "Terrible idea. It's impossible to not fall in love with me. You should know that."
"Well, ditto, but I think I'm up to the challenge. What do you say, teach? Sometimes we study, sometimes we fuck?"
"Nothing ever gets serious? Just fun?"
"Just fun."
Her smile sets me at ease. "Extra pineapple on that pizza."
"You monster!”
“Take me or leave me, Davis. I am what I am: a pineapple pizza lover.”
“You drive a hard bargain, but I’ll take it.”
Scary things are good things… right?