All Broke Down

I pull my feet up on the cushion next to me and lean my shoulder against Silas. I feel Stella watching me, so I go a step further and pull his arm up and around my shoulders.

It doesn’t even occur to me that he might not be fine with that until he tenses up. Maybe he doesn’t want his friends to know about whatever this thing is. Maybe this thing is all in my head. Maybe it’s just sex. Or talking about sex or whatever.

He leans forward, and I’m afraid he’s going to stand up and move somewhere else, but he just picks up my plate and balances it on my knees where they rest partially atop his thigh. He settles his arm fully across my shoulders, and I’m either seriously falling for this guy or I’ve got a really good idea why so many people become potheads.

My sandwich tastes so good I actually moan out loud. And I don’t even care that a few of his friends laugh. It’s that good. Silas’s hand tightens on my arm, but he doesn’t laugh. I demolish the whole thing and when I’m done, I don’t even remember chewing.

Silas puts the plate down on the coffee table, and when he sits back, I push myself a little closer to him, resting my head against his chest. I lay one arm across his stomach, and I feel his muscles contract and then release under my forearm. Fascinated, I place my palm flat on his abdomen, fanning out my fingers, and it happens again.

Something important must occur on the screen because there’s a cheer or maybe roar. All I really know is that everyone is talking, but my heart is beating loud enough that I can’t understand what they’re saying. I drag one finger through the grooves on his abdomen, across one side and over to the other. Then I move a little lower and do it again. On my third trip across, his hand stops mine, pressing it down into his stomach.

His breath is ragged against my ear and he says, “You’re not allowed to do that unless I can return the favor.”

I wiggle my hand out from beneath his and say, “Return away.”

“You still high?”

I shrug my shoulders and smile, and his head drops back against the couch with a groan. I ignore that and go back to my exploration, this time low on his belly and just a few inches above his waistband. I don’t even get halfway across before he’s plucked my hand away and closed his around it.

I lace my fingers with his because it seems like the right thing to do in my head, and he holds our entwined hands up in the air for a few long seconds, like he’s never held someone’s hand before. When I lay my head back down against his chest, he lets our hands drop into his lap and stay there.

I feel something warm and soft graze my forehead, and electricity skips up my spine. With his arm around my shoulders, my head on his chest, and my hand in his it feels like all roads lead to Silas. And all the restless energy floating through me keeps connecting to him and coming back twice as strong, like we’re this closed circuit, and the longer we stay linked, the more powerful the pull between us becomes.

There’s a frenzy to it, a need that reminds me of sex, of those moments when I’m chasing something and it feels just a breath beyond my grasp. It builds in me, fills me up, until I feel like I might burst.

Even so, as time passes, my head feels heavier and heavier, and it blankets the need, buries it. Even though I’m resting against Silas, there’s this tickle at the very top of my neck that makes me feel like a string is there holding everything together, and it’s about to snap. I shift and shift, suddenly exhausted, but unable to get comfortable.

After a few minutes, Silas grips my thighs and moves me so that he can lean against the armrest, his legs stretched out. It leaves more of my legs draped over his lap, and when I settle back down, I’m no longer laying just my head against his chest, but my whole upper body. The arm he’d had across my shoulders drops to curl around my waist. I fall asleep there, breathing in time with the lazy strokes of his fingers down my side.

My final thoughts are that I think the pot is wearing off, but the lightness it gave me, that bubbly giddiness in my belly, appears to be sticking around. Unless it isn’t the pot that’s making me giddy after all.

MY HAIR TICKLES my face as someone pushes it off my back and over my shoulder. My face is too warm, pressed against something even warmer. Breath skates over the back of my neck seconds before a kiss is placed there, chasing away some of the heaviness in my head.

I open my eyes, but the living room is dark, the television is off, and the crowd of people that had been here during my last memory is nowhere to be seen. Silas, though, is still underneath me, and I’ve shifted so that I’m practically on top of him. My head has migrated down to his stomach, my legs stretched out onto a now-empty couch, and I’ve got my arms wrapped around his middle.

I push myself up a few inches, unable to open my eyes all the way against the gravity of sleep.

“Sorry,” Silas says. “I should have woken you up when everyone left, but I . . .” He trails off, but instead of finishing his first sentence says, “How do you feel?”

“Tired.” My voice is deeper than usual, husky almost.

“Yeah, that happens.”

I remember then, why exactly I’m so sleepy. I wait for some kind of feeling to unfurl in me—anger, shame, regret. It doesn’t come, so I brace for panic, for fear, but there’s none of that, either.

Instead, I remember Silas’s face as he made me tell him exactly how many slices of ham to put on my sandwich, like he was going to be a complete failure if he put too much or too little.

“Did they win?” I ask, reaching up a hand to rub at my eyes.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Whichever team you wanted to win.”

He laughs. “They did. In fact, they had an incredible last inning that you slept right through.” I wipe my hand across my cheeks, checking for drool, and thankfully coming up empty.

“Oh, that’s good. Sorry I missed it.”

I should sit up, now that I’m awake and everything, but all I really want to do is lay my head back down against him.

“So, exactly how mad are you?” he asks.

“About missing the last inning?”

He sits up then, giving me no choice but to do the same.

“About the pot. I swear to God, I never would have let that happen if I were down here, and I promise Carter won’t get within two feet of you ever again. That should never have happened, not in my house, not around my friends, and if . . . if you don’t want to come back here again, I get that. I just—”