Some Boy (What's Love? #1) (17 page)

“I can teach you a thing or two.” Brendan lifted my top and starting kissing his way down my belly.

“I bet you can,” I said and sighed as he reached my trackies and started sliding them off. He stopped kissing just below my belly button, and was silent for a moment. I looked down at him. He seemed to be lost in thought against my skin. “What is it?”

His eyes were glowing when he looked at me. He licked his lips once, but whatever words were on the end of his tongue, he held them back. Then he just grinned and leaned back down to take hold of my knickers with his teeth.

“Don’t rip them,” I said, lying back and closing my eyes. “I might not be able to afford new ones.” Then I felt his fingers looping into the fabric, and a jerk accompanied by the sound of tearing lace. I shot up, staring at him. “Brendan!”

He grinned. “All I heard was ‘rip them’.”

I laughed and shook my head, then reached out and yanked the towel off his hips. “You’ll pay for that.”

“I don’t have any money either, remember?” he said, and I was momentarily surprised by how easily he could joke about it. I gripped his arms and pulled him up until his naked body hovered over mine.

“That’s fine. There are other ways you can pay me.” I flicked my eyebrows. Between us I saw him throb, and I reached down to take hold if him, ran the silky hardness through my hand and watched his eyes drift closed. The pulsing pressure inside me was not just between my legs, though that was strong and hard to ignore. I felt the impulse to say something. To tell him how I felt. But I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just excess emotion, the intensity of everything that had happened. I was afraid and wanting something to cling to, I knew that. So I couldn’t put that out there with him if I wasn’t sure it was real.

I just kissed him instead, opened my legs to him and moaned as he pushed into me. But as the friction of our bodies sent heat crashing over me in waves, I knew I was fooling myself. I’d known it from the first time he had come up to my room, and he had fucked me before we barely knew a thing about each other. Even then, I had known it wasn’t just fucking. It wasn’t just sex between us. Every time I let him in, a little bit more of my heart was melting.

I opened my eyes as he thrust, and found him looking at me too. We panted together. I wanted it to be real. I wanted to believe what I thought I saw there.

But I still couldn’t say it, even though it wanted to burst out of me with more force than even the explosion of white heat in my body. I thought it would fade, as the aftershocks rippled over us, and we lay dozy and tangled in each other and the sheets. But it was still there, the thought, the word, burning a hole in my chest. And because I felt drunk on him, I actually started to say it.

“Brendan—”

“Kat—“

We both spoke at once, and then laughed. “You go,” he said quickly, and my heart thudded. I glanced up at his face from where my cheek rested against his chest. I tried to think clearly. I couldn’t decide if it was just my imagination making me think he’d sounded relieved that I’d interrupted him, that made me think his body had stiffened a little, like he was nervous. Maybe I was projecting, since those were all the same things I was feeling.

I turned my face away again, running my fingers over his flat stomach, staring without seeing at his skin. “How much did you hear before?”

“Of your phone call?”

“Yeah.”

The silence seemed to throb in my ears until he answered. “Just the end of it.” I chewed on my lip. Then I shifted so that I was leaning on my elbows on the mattress and looking down at him.

“Is this still just a bit of fun for you?” I asked, keeping my voice as light as I could, but not quite able to look him in the eye. “I mean, it’s okay if it is. I just—”

“Kat.” I shut my mouth. “Haven’t we already talked about this?”

“Have we? I mean, we joke about it. I’m just never quite sure.” My throat felt constricted and my heart was banging like a drum. Why was I even doing this? I was frantically searching my brain for a way to backtrack, to retract everything I had said and settle back in the glowing languor I had just done my best to chase away. But Brendan’s eyes were tracking over my face, and I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. The world seemed to be in slow motion.

“I’m not good at this, Kat. Well I wouldn’t know if I was, since I’ve never really done it before.”

“Me neither, remember. I told you I’m not expecting anything. I just—” My chest felt so tight I briefly wondered if I was about to have a heart attack. I swallowed to get some moisture back into my dry mouth. “I just feel a lot of things that I don’t know what to do with. And it would kind of fucking hurt, if I go any further with this and you don’t feel the same.” I looked down and blinked back the hot pressure behind my eyes. “Maybe this is why I normally don’t do relationships.”

Brendan lifted his hand from where it had been resting on his stomach, and brushed a wisp of hair back from my cheek. “I don’t think this was ever
just fun
for me, Kat. I wouldn’t have even come up here that first time if it was. I wouldn’t have crossed town in my underwear. I wouldn’t have let you come in my house.” He swallowed thickly, and I just watched him. “Maybe I don’t do it right. Maybe it just seems like it’s all about sex or something. But this is the only way I know how to relate. This is what I know. Fuck, I don’t know exactly what this is, Kat— it’s just something I haven’t felt before. And, I don’t know…I think maybe I could fall in love with you.” He’d been staring at the ceiling as he spoke, but now he looked back to me, searching my face. “Is that enough? A maybe?”

I bit the inside of my lower lip and gave him a small smile. Nodding, I bent to kiss him. “Maybe is perfect.” And his arms closed around me as I dropped down to nestle into his side again. I couldn’t stop myself smiling, and I wondered if I was the only girl in the world to be so ridiculously thrilled with a ‘
maybe
I could love you.’ But I was.

F
EBRUARY
14
TH
. T
HE
most pressurised day of the year for new couples. Do we ignore it, embrace it, mock it? Leave suggestive fliers around the place that hint at which particular event of debauchery we’d like to attend?

I did the latter. I didn’t really do it consciously — I’d vowed to myself to always be direct with Brendan, to not play games. We did best when we were direct, like our ‘maybe’ conversation, and telling the truth about our lives.

Like him being honest about the reasons he’d had to work almost non-stop the last week or so, and hardly had time to see me. That it was purely about needing the money, and not about needing the space. And that when he called me late at night to crawl into my bed, it wasn’t a booty call, just the only spare moments he had between jobs and study.
 

But as honest as I might vow to be, vulnerability always creeps in. In some ways the fact that we were both new to doing the ‘normal’ relationship thing was a weight off, because it meant we had no preconceived ideas about what it
should
be. But at the same time, we had no rules either. No protocols to follow. And so as Valentine’s day crept up on me, I couldn’t decide what to do about it. I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to buy me anything, or was failing at boyfriending by not being able to afford to take me to dinner or something. Really, would that even be what I would want?

A lot of my friends were single, including Izzy, whose Salsa guy hadn’t at yet transitioned into anything more official than a hook up. The events of choice for people like her were all happening in nightclubs, and Izzy kept less than subtly hinting that she wanted me to come with her. So really, I could blame Izzy for the suggestive fliers, because she started it by doing it to me. Since I hadn’t been able to decide what the best idea was, I just took them into my room and left them laying on my desk and bedside table to see if Brendan would say anything first.

He didn’t. And the closer it got to Saturday night without either of us bringing it up, the harder it seemed to do.
 

And there was always the money thing hanging over our heads. The parties cost money — entry, drinks. Dinner cost money. Even a bunch of shitty flowers cost money. And it made me realise that perhaps we weren’t totally as honest and forthright as I liked to think — because apart from admitting that Brendan needed it, we didn’t say any more. Neither of us had mentioned the earring again either, and I had no idea what he’d done with it. It was like an unspoken agreement that I was not to offer him anything, and that we’d just assume he was fine until he said otherwise. But I wondered if he would actually say anything if he wasn’t.

I’d let it go at first. It didn’t seem to be an issue — until I remembered that normal life required money. That eventually we might want to do things together in locations other than my bed, and we’d have to come to some understanding about how that was going to work. Especially since I was clearly the one who could afford to pay for more, but he steadfastly refused to let me.

My parents hadn’t carried through with their threat yet, and I was relaxing back into the probability that they never would — even as I mentally braced for whatever else they might try. They’d have some other tactic up their sleeve, some way to bully, berate or embarrass me into submission. But I didn’t really care. Nothing they could threaten me with would make me cave.
 

I’d even kept my broken phone the way it was. Every time I looked at it, the glaring crack reminded me of what I’d stood up to. That if money was the way my parents thought they could force me to still need them, then I’d prove them wrong. And it made me think of what I’d chosen instead — Brendan. Every time he came to mind — which was about a thousand times a day — little trills of excitement would run up the backs of my legs and my stomach would flip.

So on Saturday morning, when we still hadn’t talked, I decided to be proactive and come up with a plan. I tried Googling free date ideas, but most of them required weather that wasn’t below freezing — laying on the roof and searching for constellations? Who wrote these? Firstly, what roof? Mine was eight stories off the ground and pitched at an angle that meant certain death. And secondly, what stars? This was Leeds, a brightly lit city, in England, a nation of constantly overcast skies. And hypothermia anyone? To do any of the suggestions I found, we’d need to fly at least as far as Spain first. Unless we wanted to visit a museum, but I doubted Brendan was a museum kind of guy. The rest of the suggestions were all bedroom related, and we didn’t exactly need any prompting in that department.

I sighed and shut my laptop, and flopped back on the bed, staring at my ceiling high above me. The living space in our student flat had a little mezzanine loft, so the ceilings in the whole place were raised, a crazily cavernous space that probably made heating cost double. A couple of the bedrooms did have loft spaces, cut in above the beds. Not mine, but Izzy’s did, and I sat up then when a sudden idea occurred to me. I swung my legs off the bed, and jumped up, almost running to knock on her door.
 

She opened it quickly, wide eyed. “What’s wrong?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.” I’d probably knocked a little too enthusiastically — already I was doubting myself. This was probably a dumb idea, but I just shook my head and said it anyway.

“Can we swap rooms for tonight?”

Izzy screwed up her face. “What for — and are you coming tonight? I think we’ve decided on hitting up the Love Shack party at—”

“I don’t think I’m going to go.” She pouted, but I shook my head. “We just don’t have the money for that right now.”

“We? You mean
he
doesn’t.”

“Okay, so he doesn’t. But I don’t want to push it. So I’ve been trying to think of other date ideas that won’t cost us anything.”

“So what do you want my room for?”

I told her my idea, and Izzy pulled at her bottom lip as she considered it. “Alright, so I do kinda like that. It’s cute.”

“Too cute?”

“Nah, just the right amount,” she said. “I’m jealous. I think I’m giving Tom the boot.”

“Salsa guy? Your doing it on Valentine’s?”

“It’s not like we have some love thing going on, not like you and Boxer Shorts Boy.”

I made some awkward mumbling response, feeling my cheeks get hot.

“So…bedroom?”

“Oh, yeah, ‘course.” She waved her hand, like it was a given. “So long as you don’t mind me bringing someone back to your room?”

“Would I ever stand in your way? Got your eye on any replacements for Tom?”

Izzy shook her head, her fringe getting in her eyes. “Nah. Just see what the night brings my way.” But she didn’t look at me directly, and my forehead creased a little. It wasn’t like Izzy not to tell me who she had a thing for, even a small thing. Normally she told me everything that went through her brain in way more detail than I cared to know. But if she wasn’t telling me, maybe it was something special, someone she liked for more than just a hook up. If that was the case, she probably hadn’t even admitted her feelings to herself yet. So I let it go.

“Want to come shopping with me, then? I need a few supplies.”

“Brendan can’t even afford his own condoms?”

I rolled my eyes at her impish grin. “Not those kinds of supplies.”

*-*-*

I hadn’t really thought the shopping trip through fully. One, I wasn’t sure exactly where to find what I wanted, and two, I’d under estimated the madness that descends over people because of a made up holiday. Even Izzy morphed into a morose ball of self-pity, and I regretted bringing her with me. Not that I didn’t have compassion for her. I cared that she was feeling lonely, and her reaction to the gaudy love that was shoved in our faces in every store was justifiable, even if I didn’t completely understand it; since when did Izzy care so much? I’d never seen her like this.

And when she looked like she was ready to punch a balloon-seller in the gonads for trying to sell her a foil, helium-filled heart, I wondered if it was time to send her home.