Chapter Twenty-Seven

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Chapter Twenty-Seven

TPOV

She made me pancakes for breakfast. 

But technically, that was the second thing I ate that morning. 

I woke up still half-sprawled on top of her, sporting morning wood like… Well, really there was nothing that it could be likened to; suffice it to say I was really fucking hard. 

And I don’t know if it’d been the lack of anything sexual coupled with the grinding of all time the previous night, but all I wanted to do was taste her.  So my cock and I really hoped that last night had not been a complete fluke or something strictly birthday related. 

I debated for all of about five seconds just starting and waking her up that way, but that would have involved removing clothing and I didn’t want to rip her out of sleep and freak her out.  I was treading very lightly here, and I wouldn’t fuck it up. 

So with that option eliminated, I admit a slight selfish indulgence in grinding my morning wood into her thigh before I carefully moved over her instead, and basically shoved my tongue in her mouth. 

I think her first reaction was to bite, so I quickly switched to lighter kisses and moved from her mouth down her jaw and neck, and back until I was licking the outer shell of her ear, tickling her with the sensation. 

I was really fucking happy that she didn’t immediately try to kick me, or fight me off—that meant serious trust and comfort leaps.  Instead I think my dick was just gonna hammer its way through the mattress because she moaned sleepily, and her hands flailed out, landing sloppily on me as she turned her head into the kisses. 

Her hands became much more adept as she woke, skimming down my chest with her nails and playing with the waistband of my shorts.  If she’d noticed or felt me grinding into her thigh, she hadn’t let on at all, but that was definitely where her hands were traveling.  If she got anywhere near me right now, I wouldn’t last at all, but I selfishly waited until she stroked me through the material a few times before I stopped her. 

The moan I let out into her ear was met with another one of her own, and I forced myself back to my original intent.  “Fuck.  Allison, I really want to taste you.”  I didn’t really ask; it was more of a statement, and I suppose it was my way of letting her out of it without turning me down if she wasn’t there yet. 

I was blissfully happy when she responded with much nodding.  “Yeah.  Yeah, you should.”

I snorted, holding in the outward expression of the victory march playing in my head. 

I think I surprised her with how quickly I moved, because she was chuckling at me, and her hands stayed mid-air like she hadn’t noticed I was gone right away. 

She glanced down at me when I was between her legs, and I made eye contact, “Can I take them off?”  I asked; nodding to the boxers she was wearing.  Mine, of course.  Not that I thought that was the fucking sexiest thing ever or anything. 

“Yeah, definitely.”

Well, this was going really well—way better than I imagined.  If my need to have my mouth on her ever abated, I really needed to ask what had happened.  I tried to be patient with the removal, but wasn’t really successful. 

She chuckled at me some more but pretty much lost that altogether when I dropped to the bed the next second and was sucking on her clit. 

Her hand landed heavily in my hair and she tugged harshly. “Fucking hell.”

I eased off a bit, licking her instead, and her hand loosened to a lighter grip.

I didn’t really want to waste any time after that, and if I watched her face, I didn’t think I’d last long enough to really finish her because this position allowed for me to rub against the bed and yeah, needed to focus.  I dipped lower, trying to take my time, but I think I was pretty damn sloppy with it.  And it wasn’t like she tasted any different, but it seemed ten times better than I could remember.  Absence and fondness and all that. 

I realized as I pushed my tongue into her that feeling her writhing and pushing back against my mouth, and feeling that hand in my hair—I don’t think I ever so thoroughly enjoyed going down on a girl before.  Sometimes in past relationships it was actually annoying or it was required in order to get something back, but I liked doing it to Allison.  I liked how her hand tightened when it felt really good.  I liked how her eyes were squeezed shut and her head would jerk to the left and her hips would roll into me. 

I curled my arms under her legs, half to give myself a better angle and half to keep her from bucking off the fucking bed.  I never let my mouth move away from her opening, and only used my fingers on her clit or to spread her open more.  I didn’t want to lose the taste of her now that I’d gotten it back, and it was kind of addicting.  Wetness just kept coming and I was more than happy to keep lapping it up. 

It occurred to me that it’d probably been a month (or for fuck’s sake, a little more than a month) since I’d actually been able to do this to her, and it felt like infinitely longer.  So I forced myself to slow down, not really changing anything, but making it last longer for both of us, despite the raging hard-on that wasn’t very happy with me.  And I knew she missed this just as much as I did even if her mind wouldn’t allow what her body wanted before. 

I kept my thumb over her clit, rubbing in circles, and maybe the time span that had passed had made her more sensitive, too, because she was shifting like it was too much stimulation.  I switched to something lighter, less rubbing instead, stroking downwards over her clit and then upwards.  If I thought about it, she never really got off on overzealous rubbing anyway.  Slow and steady or at least a consistent pace got her there faster. 

I still stubbornly refused to move my mouth away from her wetness because I was quite happy there, but I pulled back long enough to say, “Show me what you want.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how that would go over, but as her hand moved right away, she either didn’t care or embarrassment wasn’t tied to doing it right now.

 

So win-win.

I took mental notes like a madman—in fact, I think I might have plotted an entire diagram and possibly a flow chart. 

It was completely fascinating, distracting, and unbelievably arousing to watch her touch herself.  She left me and my mouth to the rest, but her fingers were extremely consistent (two points for Tyler knowing that!).  They also moved in a way completely different to what I normally did to her and that was by far the biggest note to self: it was infinitely better to just ask.  Also, re: bonus—sexy as fuck.  I wasn’t even sure I could accomplish that from this angle but now that I’d seen it, I really wanted to try. 

“Can I?”

She nodded, her eyes hooded, her breathing erratic, and arched right into my hand, her pussy pushing against my mouth, and Jesus Fuck; they should put that move in the handbook.  Full stop. 

This would have been much easier in a position like we’d been in the previous night, but she didn’t seem to be complaining, or missing out on anything.  And it really didn’t take long after that—her body started to freeze and her muscles tensed, everything locked up and pushed forward into me.  I loved this part—the second when her body went all tense and motionless like the moment before a rubber band snapped after being stretched too tightly.  Her back bowed and her mouth fell open on a soundless scream, her body shook and trembled while she bucked into me, her soundless scream ending on some sort of guttural noise of release.  

She flopped back on the bed, all limp and pliable when it was over; her hair a mess of directions and her whole body flushed.  I stayed between her legs, turning my head to kiss and nip her inner thigh lightly before moving back to her center, and pushing my tongue inside one more time.  I licked a strip up to kiss her clit, her hips jerking up, a hiss-laced moan tumbling out.  Too much stimulation again for the moment, so I just kept moving.  I spent a rather significant amount of time around her stomach after pushing her shirt up out of the way; I have no idea why—it was just there, and extremely kissable.  It begged for attention.  

I hadn’t bothered to wipe my mouth at all, so wherever I went, a trail of her wetness followed with me until her stomach was coated as much as my mouth was.  Her hands landed on my head, and I loved the feeling of her fingers running though my hair.  Partly, I’m sure it was because I was still fucking hard and any amount of touching of any kind carried prickling sensations all over my body, but I just liked how gently they settled in my hair, and how affectionate it felt.  Appreciative.  The content little sights she let out didn’t hurt, either.

She tugged my hair to get my attention and smirked at me when I still didn’t wipe my mouth, licking around my lips instead.  “C’mere.”

I moved until I was suspended over her again and she lifted up to meet me, shoving her tongue in my mouth just like I’d done to her.  We stayed locked that way, tongues sliding against each other until I literally couldn’t stand it anymore, and rested my forehead against hers, my cock seriously throbbing an angry rhythm from the disregard and repeated dismissal.  I wasn’t asking for reciprocation, but I was going to have to take care of that soon if I ever wanted to be hard again.  

“Gimme your boxers,” she said, nipping at my bottom lip.

I focused on her for a second, wondering what this was.

She shrugged. “You stole mine.”

I chuckled and flopped down next to her on the bed to get them off, and handed them to her, sort of watching fascinatingly as she just threw them on.  I mean, I’d spent the entire morning grinding pre-come into them and she just nonchalantly pulled them on.  It was… I seriously needed to just go beat off in the shower.  She couldn’t just do that random and completely sexy shit and expect that I could just…take it.  My brain couldn’t function that way.  I had a dick.  They had demands.  Sexy girlfriends that insisted on doing wholly sexy things meant there had to be plenty of beating off if other sexual outlets were stunted.  

I sat up to try to find the boxers I’d taken off of her before when she pulled me back to lie next to her again.  “It’s not fair if I don’t get to blow you, too.”

I don’t think I was capable of forming actual words for a minute.  She had been rather suggestive with her options last night.  A birthday blowjob had been at the top of the list.  She just smiled at me, waiting for it to process.  I shook my head though. “At this point, there’s not gonna be much blow in that job.  The minute your mouth is gonna be on me, I’m gone.”

She propped herself on her elbow and reclined next to me, her hand skimming up and down the side of my chest.  “You want me to slow you down?  Make it last longer?”

I considered this, I really did.  The prospect of her doing so would be nothing short of incredible; I was sure.  I also really wanted to fucking come.  And I hoped me saying no wouldn’t be interpreted that I didn’t want her to.  “Honestly?”

“Obviously,” she said, nodding.

“No.  I really wanna come.”

She nodded and moved about as fast as I had when I’d first woken her up and had the go-ahead.  And literally, she had time to grip my shaft, her mouth enclosed over the head of my cock and the minute she started going down, her little hand pumping, I was fucking gone.  And the orgasm was unbelievably awesome and almost downright painful by the end.  

So to recap, I thoroughly satiated my need to taste her, she reciprocated in kind, I was in that drowsy state of post-orgasm warmth, in bed, with my girl all curled up with me, and not only was she wearing one of my old T-shirts, but the boxers she stole had me all over them.  Was there shit better than that?

“I’m gonna make you breakfast,” she announced, pushing off my chest.

Yep, shit got better.  Oral plus breakfast!

“How about pancakes?”

“Jesus, is it still my birthday?”

“We’re still celebrating, yeah.”

“I must have been an awfully good boy this year.”

She’d been at the door when I said that, and poked her head back in the room.  “You were on the line really, but the oral pushed you over.  That’s why I got bacon for this morning, too.”

“Oh, fuck, seriously?”

She chuckled, nodding.  “I figured you’d like that.”

I hummed happily in response.

“Take a nap while I make breakfast.  I plan on you lasting longer after we eat.”

Fuuuuck.  She made me incredibly happy.

~ ~ ~

I had been convinced that my birthday would be nothing but a complete disaster.  In fact, I’m sure in a lot of ways, I’d set it up that way.  I didn’t want it to be a good day; I set out to ensure I would not have a good day.  I’d been moody for days before, and when I left for my mother’s house that morning, I wasn’t looking to have a good time.  I just wanted to crawl back in bed with Allison and not come out again until the day had passed.  

It’s hard when you’re the only one in a pissy mood, and everyone else is determined to be so cheery as fuck that you’ll have the mood cheered right out of you.  Especially when it’s unsolicited and unwelcome.  I didn’t want a birthday party.  I really didn’t think there was anything to celebrate.  Twenty-two is normally inconsequential.  It’s long after kid parties were cool, four years too late of eighteen and legal, and a year past of twenty-one and drunk.  Most people just let twenty-two pass them by and I really wanted to be one of them.  Except twenty-two for me meant an entirely different set of things: it was the year Michael never saw, the birthday he decided it was over, the birthday people in my family would always judge if you survived to—like, would Tyler make it past twenty-two?  If I lasted the entire twenty-four hours, I’d be older than my brother ever would be.  And that just felt incredibly wrong.  It felt wrong to be without him, but being without him and being older than him was worse.  It wasn’t like I was trying to be melodramatic; we hadn’t made some brotherly pact to both off ourselves at twenty-two.  I wasn’t a suicidal risk, but I’m sure other people, and my mother, definitely wondered about that.  

My problem was why.  The one question I couldn’t answer.  I logically knew that he didn’t want to work for my father; that he wanted to play music and etch out an existence that he found more noble—transient and unglamorous—a different city every night, freedom of the road, sleeping in the van with the band, gig after gig after gig.  But ending everything because you had to wear a suit and follow the old man around?  I mean, I might have joked that I’d kill myself before I’d ever work for him, but I wouldn’t actually  do that.  And it’s not like Michael said anything—he didn’t seem depressed.  He never said anything to me about how disappointing it was to work for our father.  Or how much it destroyed him.  It was just a fucking job, and he was a much better and stronger person than that, than I was.  Maybe I was just being insensitive or maybe I’d misjudged the length of his passion for music.  But a lot of people, most people, did not get to do for a living what they truly wanted.  He could have done gigs at night and on weekends.  It was senseless.  And it made me, already lost and rebelling, just feel even less grounded, like I knew nothing about anything anymore.  How could I?  When I didn’t even know my own brother?  And maybe that was some of it, too—I’d always been the one to talk back, the one to confront the great Charles Hawkins and tell him to stick it.  Michael rebelled very little.  Or if he did, our father didn’t even realize that’s what it was.  Even working for him—Michael had accepted the offer and that seemed the end of it.  And I mean, our father wasn’t exactly one to take no for an answer, but Michael hadn’t…

… Hell, maybe suicide was his ultimate rebellion.

Really I don’t think there would have been as much shock if it’d been me.  Michael wasn’t a saint, he wasn’t the golden child, but it probably would have been easier for people to understand if it’d been me.  Tyler, the fuck up.

I really tried on the way over to my mom’s to force myself into a better mood.  Because if I seemed moody and unhappy, crisis alarms were going to blare from her social-worker-heart.  And then the need to fix was going to kick in, and it’d be an entirely more unpleasant time.  I still wasn’t very successful.  

The door opened to smiling faces and hugs.  Hugs felt… I don’t know.  I was in such a shit mood; I barely wanted to hug back.  Les shook my hand in the customary way he always did, one hand pump only, and he smiled warmly.  “Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.”  There was a certain comfort to that handshake.  Not because I saw him as a father figure, although he was probably more of a one to Caroline than our own real father, but just because I knew what to expect with him every time.

It was worse though because Caroline was excited.  

She was right in that age where kid parties were still cool until about the next year.  There were streamers all over the chandelier over the kitchen table, and I had to smile instead of light them on fire.  “You do that, maestro?”

She nodded excitedly.  “Wanna see your cake?”

Not even remotely.  Is it made of alcohol?  “Sure.”

“There are candles, too!”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and smiled instead, “Great.”  I suppose I was lucky I wasn’t being forced to wear one of those coned birthday hats with the uncomfortable elastic string.  

“You can make a wish on them!”

Please make this day be over.  Would that work?  Please create a time vortex or wormhole that will swallow me or this entire day.  Rule was I didn’t have to tell what my wish was or it wouldn’t come true.  I could come up with tons of shit to wish for by that time.  

The cake was too large for four of us; it was plastered in a layer of white frosting with blue ribbon frosting on the edges.  Rainbow-colored candy confetti had been spewed over the entire surface of the cake.  At least there were no goopy flowers.  The writing said very clearly in blue gel frosting Happy 22nd Birthday, Tyler!  And I forced a smile because Caroline was looking at me so expectantly instead of reading more into it and thinking it more an insult that should have read Happy 22nd Birthday, Tyler!  You made it past Michael!  

My mother had a brunch kind of thing set up with too much food, and I forced myself to eat enough not to raise suspicions.  The cake after was too sweet and it had the consistency of paste when I was chewing it.  But I forced that down, too, because it was expected by that point.  I tried to be a good sport for Caroline, even sitting through blowing out the goddamn candles she insisted on having.  I did protest about singing.  That just wasn’t happening.  

“So what are you going to do with the rest of your day?” my mother asked when the plates had been cleared.  

Besides not go hang myself in my apartment, you mean?  That was the underlying question.  To everything, I felt.  “I work noon to six today.”

“Do you want to stop back after and we can take you to dinner?”

...So you don’t go back to your apartment and hang yourself?  “No, I think I’ll go home after.  Thanks, though.”

I got the look of concern.

“Aidan wants to take me out,” I lied.  I was totally lying; Aidan had blessedly said nothing of the sort, and I knew he understood better than my family that I didn’t want shit this year.  God, I had a flash of him forcing me out, or our apartment filled with the entire population of the building, and people passing out and puking before I’d even gotten there.  Oh my God, I’d kill him if he did that. 

She seemed much happier with the prospect of binge drinking.  Because then I wasn’t hanging myself in my apartment.  She was probably ecstatic this year that I had a roommate.  Wonder if that would have stopped Michael?  “Oh, well that should be fun.”

“Loads,” I agreed dryly and was given the look of concern again.

“What about your g–“

I shot Caroline a glare, and she shut her mouth promptly. 

My mother looked between the two of us for a minute, but decided not to ask, and I was so fucking happy about that.  That was not a conversation I wanted to have today.

I purposely orchestrated my arrival for the “party” late enough in the morning that I could use work as my excuse for leaving relatively quickly after the festivities were concluded.  There was the customary teary moment when my mother was preparing for me to leave, and wished me a happy birthday again.  I knew it was probably wrought with more emotion this year because it wasn’t just another year passing.  There was the usual: “I remember when you were this big!”  “I remember your first tooth!”  “Your first smile!”  “Your first day of kindergarten!”  “And now look at you!  An adult!  A man!”  Of course she didn’t say what I knew was there as well—that I was now officially her oldest child.  That Michael was forever frozen at twenty-two while I’d passed into it, and the probability of twenty-three was pretty damn high. 

We let the unspoken milestones pass silently for a few moments before she ended with the usual: taking my face in her hands and telling me, “I’m so proud of you.  You’ll still always be my little boy, Tyler.”

…and Michael, too.

My mom didn’t need any more shit; so I let it all just wash over me, and I kept all of the comments I could have said to myself.  I was doing really well with all of it, too, until she added, “He’d be proud of you, too, you know.  Of how you spend time with Caroline.  How you’ve turned into such a wonderful older brother.  She adores you.”

I couldn’t meet her eyes, and I couldn’t allow my mouth to open at all, because I knew only a sob would make its way out, and I’d wind up weeping with my mother at the bottom of the stairs.  I was lucky she let go of my face so I could drop my head and avoid all eye contact, keeping my head down and nodding a few times quickly. 

This was what my mother was best at—knowing you intrinsically even if you didn’t (or tried not to) recognize it yourself.  She knew just what to say to turn me into a ball of emotional mush.  Trick of her trade perhaps. 

She also knew when to leave you alone.  She grabbed my hand and squeezed it once, and I squeezed back just as hard because I might not have been able to tell her just how much that meant to me in words, but I think she knew anyway.  She kissed my cheek. “Happy Birthday, Tyler.”

“Thanks,” I managed; my voice completely hoarse and rough. 

A few tears slipped out silently before I could stop them.  But losing in the stairwell was not an option.  I still had to say goodbye to Caroline, and she’d know if something was up. 

I took several deep breaths as I climbed the stairs, angrily wiping away the evidence of the tears, and trying to compose myself into something more of normal Tyler.  I cleared my throat before I knocked on Caroline’s door. 

“Enter.”

I snickered; so formal, my sister.  “Hey,” I said, poking my head in the room.  My voice wasn’t completely normal, but it was better than it had been.  I decided a silence where she could analyze would only make me look guiltier.  “I’m gonna take off.  Gotta get to work.”  I cleared my throat again. “Thanks for the party, maestro.”

She was drawing, and her pencil stopped shading the area she was.  I couldn’t tell from the door what the picture was.  She leveled her eyes on me.  “Mom?”

I chuckled, grinning. “Yeah.  She got me at the bottom of the stairs.”

She nodded. “She does that.”

“Yeah.” 

“So why didn’t you want me to say anything about your girlfriend?”

I moved into her room more fully, not eager to have this conversation eavesdropped on.  I sighed, shrugging at the same time.  “Just not something I wanted to get into today.  Mom would have insisted on meeting her or bringing her for dinner, and besides the fact that I like having her all to myself, I don’t exactly have an idea of how the whole stripper thing will go over.”

“Mom’s not like that.”

“Yeah, I know, I just… It wasn’t something I wanted to get into.”

“Did you ask her when I can meet her?”

“Not yet, but I will soon, I promise.  We were just figuring some things out for a while.”

She nodded, like she knew exactly what that meant.  

“I gotta get to work, Caroline.  I’ll call you soon, ok?  Thanks again for the party.”

“You’re welcome.”

I moved over to her, enveloping her in a hug, and pressing a kiss into the top of her head.  “I’ll call you.”

“Tyler?” she called out as I was just about out the door.

“Yeah?”

“What’s her name?  Your girlfriend?”

I smiled gently.  “Allison.  Her name is Allison.”

Caroline went back to her shading after nodding.  I don’t think she realized either that other than Aidan, literally no one else knew her name.  But there was this unquestioning acceptance in something as simple as Caroline’s nod.  I didn’t need her approval, but it made things easier, and talking to her about Allison, today of all days, was the first time I wanted to tell her more.  Maybe because other than Caroline and my mom, she was one of the only other good things about this entire fucking day.

I spent most of work in sort of a daze.  I called Allison just before getting there, already lost in too many thoughts; thoughts about her, thoughts about Caroline and my mom, Michael, my fucking father.  It was a good thing that I knew the bookstore inside and out and could safely hide for hours at a time because customer interaction was probably not wise at the moment.  

The slight mood uplift after the end of the party at my mother’s house had been completely replaced with the shitty one again by the time I was done with work.  I had a sneaking suspicion that my thoughts from earlier about Aidan throwing a party were about to be realized, and I hoped that if nothing else, Allison and I could either leave and spend the night at her apartment, or hide in my room for an indefinite amount of time.

Either way, any thoughts of her not knowing or bypassing the day were over when there was a note taped to the apartment door telling me to go up to the roof.  I debated actually ignoring the note completely and just waiting for them to come down.  I didn’t want a party up there anymore than I wanted a party at my mother’s.  And I was already in such a pissy mood. 

I trudged heavily up to the roof with my beer in hand.  I was going to hit Aidan over the head with said bottle if there were tons of people on the roof. 

To my surprise, there were blessedly only two people.  One of whom I completely adored and another who I tolerated because even if he was an asshole, he was a decent friend when he wanted to be.  No one had put any streamers up here, and the only signs of the fact we were celebrating a birthday I wanted to forget were the lone balloon that was weighed down with a fifth of vodka, and the two candles that Allison had stuck in the non-birthday cake-pie. 

If I had to pick a way to celebrate my birthday without really celebrating, it would have been this.  And she knew me incredibly well.  She made the same meal that she made for me all those months ago when I came over for dinner the first time.  And it seemed incredibly poignant and thoughtful that she made that particular food.  Dinner wound up being the only time I’d been truly happy all fucking day, birthday pie and all.

Then my phone rang.  And the happiness started ebbing away slowly with the display. 

Incoming Call: King Midas

I really should have let it go to voicemail.  I have no fucking idea what I was thinking.  Maybe I kept hoping he was going to be someone he was not. 

I suppose the way the rage always boiled at nothing more than his name was unhealthy.  I had issues.  But as they weren’t likely to ever be solved, it didn’t really seem like I should change anything about how I reacted.  He was always going to be incorrigible. 

“Hello, Tyler.”

“Hey.”

There was a silence then that I refused to fill with anything.  He called.  So if he had something to say, he should start saying it. 

He cleared his throat.  “Twenty-two today, huh?”

“Yep.”

“I thought I’d just call to wish you a happy birthday.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Can’t believe you’re twenty-two already.”

Like he noticed the years passing him by?  “Yeah, incredible.”

He sighed.  Like he was upset by the fact that conversation was strained.  Like it wasn’t his fault.  “I didn’t call to fight, Tyler.”

Well, then why did you call at all?  “Ok.”

“Did… Did you have a good birthday?”

“What, like, in case it was so shitty I might hang myself, too?  Make it a family tradition?”

“Tyler.  That’s not what I meant.”

“Right.”

He was silent for a while, and there was another sigh there.  “You’re stronger than he was, Tyler.”

I don’t think I can accurately explain the additional anger that exploded in my chest.  But I managed to keep my voice much calmer than I thought I’d be able to.  Eerily controlled.  “It’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, dad.”

“Tyler—” he started.  

But I was done.  “Thanks for calling.”

“Jesus, Tyler.  Why do you have to make this so hard?”

I ended the call.  Because not doing so would have meant unleashing the anger that was boiling.  

I didn’t exactly handle the conversation well.  And I basically ruined the atmosphere that they created on the roof.  Drinking wasn’t the answer, but it burned going down and that made my chest burn for a different reason.  Made me forget momentarily why it was burning in the first place.  

Of course Allison was well within her rights to call me on it.  And that was half the reason I loved her.  Because she called me on shit, and she didn’t just take it.  So it wasn’t like I even had a choice other than following her when she made her exit.  If I had decided to stay up on the roof, while I’m sure she would have been pissed, I don’t think she would have held it against me either.  

I sighed, throwing back a last shot of vodka as the door to the roof closed behind her.  

“You wanna talk about it?”  Aidan asked.

I shook my head, and leaned over, elbows on my knees, head down between my shoulders, trying to will the anger into something else, or at least let it go for the moment.  She made this day innumerably better by just being in my life, mini party notwithstanding, and I didn’t want to take this out on her once I got downstairs.  

“You want another drink?” Aidan asked.

I shook my head again, but didn’t raise it to look at him.  “I better not.  I’d love another one.  I’d love to just down the whole bottle and pass out and forget this day entirely, but I can’t.”

“Yeah.”

I sighed, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.  

“I’m sorry your dad ruined shit tonight.”

“Yeah, me, too.  But thanks for the party.  It was by far the best part of the day.”

“Yeah, it was all Allison pretty much.  I just did what I was ordered to do.  I wanted to invite a bunch of people and get you drunk.”

I snorted, raising my head enough to see him.  “I would have killed you.”

He shrugged, grinning.  “She didn’t think that was a good plan, either.  I still say you woulda been happier.”

I sighed and stood up, stretching my neck and shoulders.  The tension there with just a short conversation with him was sort of ridiculous.  “I’m sorry you’re stuck cleaning up.”

“Eh, not the first time; won’t be the last.  It’s your birthday.  You shouldn’t have to clean up.”

“Well thanks anyway.”

“Sure.”  He smirked and pulled me into a hug.  “I’m gonna drink the rest of your vodka so don’t thank me too much.”

I laughed as I pulled back.  “It’s all yours, man.  Have at it.”

“Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.”

As I made my way downstairs, I couldn’t tear my thoughts completely away from my father.  And Michael.  Always Michael.  In reality, I knew there was no way we would ever know the real cause or what or who was responsible for Michael’s death.  And logically, I knew that Michael was ultimately responsible.  He made the final decision.  So it wasn’t really a matter or responsibility, but accountability, liability.  Other people could be held liable.  If a drunk driver killed someone, and died in the same accident, they can still be charged with the death.  There was no difference here.  

The fact that my father was basically completely emotionally absent for me was fine.  I was ok with that.  I was old enough to deal with it.  But Caroline deserved better, and she was only asking for time and interest.  Nothing more.  Surely Charles Hawkins could take moments out of his horrendously busy lifestyle to give a shit about his only daughter.  Why have a child if you’re not going to pay attention to it?  

We never discussed Michael’s death.  Never.  The minute he died, he became something nonexistent in the realm of conversation for my father.  Like collateral damage.  And Caroline and I became just as invisible.  

My thoughts were still bouncing all over the place when I walked into my bedroom.  And then they all just sort of floated away because she was already in her pajamas and sitting on the bed with her back against the wall, and it just didn’t matter anymore today.  I didn’t want to think about my father anymore.  Or Michael.  Or anyone else.  I just wanted to be with her and try to get back to the parts of the day that didn’t suck.  Which were pretty much all the parts with her in it.  

I realized that even if I reacted badly to anything involving my father, I had to learn to control it better.  Because I felt like an even huger asshole when she left a present on my pillow even after I’d been a dick on the roof.  I had to stop taking my frustration and anger over my father out on other people I loved.  

She was incredibly nervous about the gift once I started opening it.  It was a small box which limited the options, and at one point, she looked like she was almost ready to snatch it back from me.  She managed to continuously surprise me.  And for someone that actually hadn’t known me that long, she really did know me well.  I’d never been given a ring by a girl, or by anyone for that matter.  And I was going to make the customary joke about marriage and rings, but she looked so incredibly nervous, I didn’t.  She’d put an incredible amount of thought into this gift.  Knowing the whole story behind it, its symbols and meaning, and how she picked it out; the meaning of the griffin symbol was a balance between good and evil—strong and protective but angry and unstable.  She was saying that she felt protected with me, even if I was angry and unstable.  She was saying that she accepted that in me—that sometimes I was volatile, and she cared about me anyway.  That she was taking the good with the bad and our lives were intertwined like the knots now.  She had no way of knowing that my family was part Irish, so that was cool in itself, too.  And dragons and griffins were incredibly cool, guy-like symbols to have on a ring.  For a piece of jewelry, it was very masculine.

Before I interrupted her panicked explanation that ended with her offering to get something else, and tell her it was the perfect gift, she’d said I just wanted you to have something that….  She hadn’t really needed to end that sentence.  I knew exactly what she meant.  She wanted me to have something that also marked me as hers.  And I couldn’t have been happier to do so.  I loved that I was hers just as much as I loved she was mine.  They weren’t hard connections to make.  

I kind of couldn’t stop touching the ring.  Or playing with it.  Or at least just being aware of its presence.  It made my hand feel different and not at all different at the same time.  Pretty much the entire time she was making breakfast, I was playing with it, holding it up to the light, letting the sunlight that was filtering in bounce off the silver and make little flecks all over the wall like a prism, and smiling like a gigantic moron.  And she totally caught me.

“You’re not following directions, Tyler.”

I put my hand down quickly, but couldn’t really erase the smirk.

“What directions was I supposed to be following again?”

“Napping.  Saving up your energy for after breakfast.”

“You realize that the more you say shit like that, the less I’m thinking about breakfast, right?”

She chuckled, handing me a plate.

I sat up against the wall; the only thing that could distract me from sex was her food.  Pancakes weren’t supposed to look this good.  I may have moaned quite sexually while taking the first bite.

She chuckled at me.  “I’m glad you like them…and the ring,” she added quickly, and quieter than the rest.

I leaned closer, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I love it.  And the pancakes are awesome.”

Truthfully, the post-pancake blowjob wasn’t a whole lot longer than the first.  And I blame her, her pancakes, the ring, and her some more, for that. 

She was shaking her head and clucking her tongue at me on her way back up to lie next to me.  Instead of landing next to me, she landed on my chest instead, and then laughed at the exhale-laced grunt I let out.  “Gimme your phone.”

I fumbled on the nightstand for it, and it really would have been easier for her to just grab it, but maybe she didn’t know if it was cool for her to just take it.  I mean, realistically, she had my cock in her mouth three minutes before.  As far as I was concerned, she could assume and have any goddamn thing she wanted.  I handed her the phone and she started dialing.

“Who’re you calling?” I asked, tickling her when she dug her elbows into my chest. 

She squirmed and dug them in more for a second before easing the pressure.  “I’m calling 911.”

“What for?”

“Because I need to talk to someone?”

“About?”

“Why a young guy like you has such shit stamina.”

I tickled her some more. “Ouch.  That hurts, ya know.”

She shrugged when I stopped tickling, smirking while she dug her elbows in again in retaliation. 

“I should call the police and see if someone can be arrested for…” I stopped.

She looked at me expectantly.

“Never mind.  That was going to be a completely pointless joke that made no sense anyway because that fact that your blowjobs only last a few minutes is really testament to how awesome they are.  So ignore that.”

She snorted. “You’re a dork.  I really just wanted an excuse to see how many chicks you have on your phone.”

I burst out laughing. “You could have just asked.  I would have just given it to you.”

“Oh yeah?  No secrets on this phone?”

I shook my head, resting my hands on her back again. 

“You can learn a lot about a person from their phone.” 

“Is that right?”

“Yep.  Like who they call the most.  Who they never call.  Who they call certain names.  What kind of background they pick.”

“And what does my background say about me?” 

She made a production of looking at the wallpaper.  I honestly rarely changed it, and couldn’t remember what it even was currently.

“Your background says you have a little sister that messes with your phone.”  She turned the phone for me to see.

I groaned.  The phone’s current wallpaper was of that fucking pasty cake; in particular the Happy Birthday part with the HA missing because a piece had been cut out. 

She chuckled. “She loves you.”

I nodded.  “I love her, too.  Remember when I told you she wants to meet you?”

“Yeah…”

“Yeah, she asked again.  After the party.”

She nodded slowly, looking down.

“Is that…would that be ok?”  I paused and then quickly added, “If we met her somewhere or if you met us when I pick her up from school or something?  She has summer school a couple days a week.”

She started chewing her lip.  “Yeah, I guess.”

“Would that make you uncomfortable?”

She shrugged.

“I mean, eventually, you’re going to have to meet her.  Eventually you’re going to have to meet my mother, too.”

Her eyes cut to me; something between nervousness and obstinacy written there.  Like a challenge.  Like I couldn’t force her if she didn’t want to.  That was the look.

My eyebrows went up.  “What?  It’s the truth.  If you’re dating me, eventually you’ll have to meet my family.  It’s just part of the deal.”

She sighed and nodded again. “Yeah, ok.”

Victory!  Caroline would be so excited.  “I’ll set it up.”

She smirked. “You do that.”

“What else does my phone say?  Do I pass this particular test?”

“I dunno yet.”  She thumbed through a few more.  “You love your mom.”

“These are kind of generic and something everyone has, aren’t they?  Because I have my mom in my phone and it says ‘Mom,’ that means I love her?  Where’s the juicy shit?  Am I that boring?”

She raised a brow. “There are a lot of unnamed phone calls.  Unrecognized numbers.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “If I had to make a guess, I’d say they were women who had your number.”

“And?”

“And they’re only incoming calls.  So you didn’t call them back.”

“That’s true.”

“And there are a lot of contacts that you’ve never called.”

I nodded.

“Women who put their numbers in your phone?”

I nodded again.  “You know there’s no one else, right?”

She nodded back. “Yeah, your call volume has gone way down.”

I laughed. “We can delete them.  All of them.”

“That’d leave you with very few contacts.”

I smirked. “And what would that say?”

“I dunno, you’re pussy-whipped?”

I laughed. 

“That our number of contacts would be more equal.”

“I think people tend to keep a lot of numbers even if they don’t use them.”

“That’s kinda pointless,” she said, her eyebrows pulled down.  “Why have someone’s number if you’re never going to use it?  Just delete it.  Unless you wanna keep a few on the string in case something goes south.”  She smirked at me, and I knew she was kidding, but I grabbed the phone and started deleting anyway.  “You don’t have to do that, Tyler.  I was kidding.”

“I know, but you’re right.  I don’t know half of them, and I don’t want to.  And I’m never going to call them.  I don’t need the numbers anymore.  I’ve got you.”

She laid her head on my chest while I was deleting.  “Tell me about them.”

“Who?”

“The women you’re deleting.”

I eyed her, wondering why she wanted to know this, but she just seemed genuinely curious.  I think she was just interested in my past.  It wasn’t a jealousy or comparison thing.  “I honestly don’t remember most of them.”

“Mmm.”

“Does that make you see me differently?”  I asked, suddenly genuinely curious myself.  I mean, I’d been monogamous in relationships (mostly), but if I hadn’t been in one, I certainly hadn’t been kicking women out of my bed, either.

She thought about it for a minute, making circles over my skin with one finger.  “No.  I knew that’s who you were when I met you.  But I also knew it was just… I dunno.  Survival?  That’s not the right word, not what I really mean, but I don’t know what else to call it.  I wouldn’t have agreed to date you if I really thought that was all you were.”

“Who was I when you met me?”

She smirked. “You were a player.”

I smirked back. “Was I?”

“You were trying to play me.  I just didn’t bite.”

“No, you certainly didn’t.  You really think I was a player?”

She shrugged.  “I guess.  I dunno what else to call you.  You were looking to get laid.”

I laughed.  “I guess, yeah.  I wouldn’t have called myself a player really. I mean, I wasn’t soliciting.  I just didn’t say no if someone wanted to come home with me.”

“Pfft, what do you mean you weren’t soliciting?  You walked into that bar looking to get laid.  If that’s not soliciting, I dunno what is.”

“Hmm.  I guess I’ve never thought about it like that before.”

“You wouldn’t, you’re a guy.”

“Ugh, that’s a lame explanation.”

“I mean, though, you weren’t… I don’t mean it in a bad way.”

I laughed again.  “Thanks.”

“No, like there are assholes who are players and then there are just regular guys who are looking to score, ya know?”

“No, what’s the difference?”

She sighed, propping her head on her hands instead.  “I dunno.  Attitude?  Maybe player’s not the right word.  I just didn’t know what else to call it.  You were confident.” 

“Confident is better than a player.”

“Ok, confident then.”

I nodded, in that way that signifies finality.  Like I’d won or something.  

“Do you remember any of them?” She chuckled.

I smiled.  “Uhm, this girl, Amy, she was nice.  But she was a do-er.  Like, she talked endlessly about how she was going to save the world through politics.  She was incredibly naïve.  I didn’t want to corrupt her, and I didn’t want her to fix me.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ugh, this girl was a total bitch.  Eva.  She thought she was ten times prettier than she really was and she was a horrible lay.”

She laughed.  “Jesus.  You’re mean.  What about that Allison girl?”

“You asked me!  I’m only being honest.  Would you rather I lie about the ones I remember?”

“No, I appreciate the honesty.”

“Allison.  Allison, Allison, Allison.  Hmm.  Cute.  Short.  Beautiful eyes.  She’s easy to remember.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.  Definitely a keeper.  She fits with me, even though she could do way better.”

Her lips pressed against my chest.  “That Tyler guy is too nice.”

“Eh, he was kind of a prick, but only because he didn’t see things going anywhere with any of them.”  

She pressed another kiss to my chest, but I didn’t acknowledge it.  “Sarah.  God, there are three Sarah’s on here?  How would I even know which one I was dialing?  Why wouldn’t they put like a last name or initial or something to distinguish themselves?  They’ve made themselves completely nondescript.”

I handed the phone back to her.  “There.  I think I know everyone on there now.”

She scrolled through the remaining contacts.  “Wow, your life is gonna be so boring now.”

I snorted.  

“Who’s this?”  She turned the display.  “King…Midas?”

I sighed.  “That’s Mr. Charles Hawkins himself.”

“Your dad?  Why King Midas?”

“Michael loved mythology.  And in Greek mythology, King Midas was a kind ruler that was granted one wish by the god Dionysus.  His wish was that everything he touched would turn to gold.  So he was admiring his garden and the way that the flowers reached towards the sun for light, but when he touched them, they turned to gold.  When he was hungry, every food he touched turned to gold.  When he was thirsty, everything he tried to drink turned to gold.  His clothes, his entire palace.  And then one day, his daughter came in to see him, and without thinking, he reached for her, and she turned to gold, too.  His greed killed his daughter.  His lust for gold and power killed his kid.”

She just watched me for a minute, and I couldn’t read her expression.  When she did start talking again, it wasn’t what I expected.  “You think your dad’s greed killed your brother?”

I thought that was rather implicit in my story retelling, but I indulged her. “Yes.”

“How?”

“I…I don’t even know how to answer that.  How did it not?  If my father wasn’t such a fucking prick, and if he thought about his family half as much as he thought about money, Michael might be here today.”

She sighed.  “Have you ever thought that maybe your dad was thinking about his family when he asked Michael to work for him?”

“He doesn’t ask.  My father doesn’t ask anything.  Michael was working for him, end of story.”

“And you don’t think that maybe he was trying to help him?”

“No.  I don’t.”

She nodded.  And for some reason it really annoyed me.  Like it was placating.  “What?” I demanded.

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.  Obviously you have something to say about it.”

“I don’t want to fight, Tyler.  Let’s just drop it.”

“No.”  I should have learned a long time ago to drop things.  

She sighed, and pushed off of my chest.  “Tyler, I don’t want to do this with you.”

“Well I want to.  I want to do this.  Enlighten me.  Tell me more about what I’m missing.  Tell me all about my father.  The father that you don’t know.”

She was shaking her head at me, but it had an amused air to it, and that pissed me off some more.  Like she superiorly knew something more than I did about a topic she had no connection to.

“You’re right.  I don’t know your father.  You win.”

Oh, she had to know that shit wasn’t going to fly.  

“Just fucking say what you want to.”

“Fine.  You think you know about greed and lust and everything else.  But you don’t know shit, Tyler.  You’re so fucking clueless about the real world.  You talk about life like you know what one has been like.  And you don’t.  You don’t know shit.”

“And I suppose you do?  You’re going to school me on it?  Is that it?”

“Tyler, you don’t even know how much you have.  You blame your dad for everything that’s gone wrong in your life, but he’s the one who provided everything for you.”

“What?”

“Well you certainly didn’t have a problem with his money when he was paying for private schools and European vacations, and whatever the fuck else you’ve gotten to have because of it.  Did you?  You didn’t have a problem when he was buying you the best of everything with that money, did you?  Who pays for you to not really go to college?  Who pays for this apartment?  Do you Tyler?  Do you pay for it?  All of it?  You have no fucking idea what greed means.  Greed like selling people for money.  Greed like killing someone for drugs.  Funny how everything he’s done for you seems a lot more to me like being a decent fucking parent than deliberately trying to fuck up your life.  You need to take some responsibility for yourself, Tyler.  And stop blaming your father for everything.  He can’t be your excuse for everything.”

We somehow managed to both be basically panting with rage by the time she was done with that.  Neither of us were in bed anymore, and we were basically shouting at each other from opposite sides of the bed.  

And I didn’t really know how we’d gotten to this point when everything had been fine a few minutes ago.  

She sighed heavily, letting out a long breath, and sort of deflated.  She shook her head and didn’t look at me.  “I’m going to shower.”

She steered clear of me on her way to the bathroom, and I didn’t stop her.  I was still mad and…I didn’t want to hear what she was saying about my father, because she was shooting holes in shit I was keeping close to me like fucking Swiss cheese.  And if I was being truly honest with myself, anger was all I had with him a lot of time.  I wasn’t sure I knew how to react to him any other way.  And I didn’t really want to let go of it.  I knew all of that shit.  I always did.  And it was always there in the back of my mind, but I’d pushed it so far away to keep holding onto whatever I had to hold against him…

Our lives had not at all been alike.  And I was seriously an asshole for not remembering that.  I imagine I came off as an even bigger bastard every time I complained about my father, given what she’d missed out on, and what she hadn’t had.  He hadn’t always been a prick.  He’d been absent, but he’d been a father for some of it.  

Her experiential example of greed kept running on a loop through my head.  Because examples came from experience; they had to.  People didn’t talk that strongly about things they didn’t know.  You have no fucking idea what greed means.  Greed like selling people for money.  Greed like killing someone for drugs.  Selling people for money and killing for drugs.  That had to mean that someplace in her past included those experiences, if even indirectly.  She’d been a user, but I didn’t think murder was really in her repertoire, so that one I guessed had to be from a witness standpoint only.  Selling people for money.  

She’d had prior arrest and small jail stints.  No parents; runaway at a young age, abusive foster homes, men that did not get her off.  Men didn’t even want to.  Gentleness and attentiveness had been foreign concepts.  Stripper.  Nothing normal was normal to her.  All the questions about if things were right or ok, or the correct response.  Dating like we had been being not her normal experience.  Never had a guy go down on her.  Mostly they just got off.  The whole aversion to approaching from behind and no anal.  

I was such a fucking moron.  

Selling herself for money.  That was the connection I hadn’t been making or hadn’t wanted to make.  I didn’t know anything about that.  

Fucking.  Hell.  

Allison had been a prostitute.  It was like all the cogs shifted into their correct places all at once, and I felt like it’d been there all along and I just missed what was glaringly obvious.  

All the anger from everything about my dad just evaporated all at once.  I didn’t need to resolve that part with myself right now.  I just needed to fix the argument part.  And do it without her knowing I’d just made this leap to figure shit out.  Because she still hadn’t told me, and obviously didn’t want me to know.  

I seemed to be spending an awful lot of time recently trying to fix shit that I’d fucked up with her.  

I was halfway to the bathroom before I started wondering if I was going to apologize because I was actually sorry or because I knew she’d been a prostitute.  Did that change anything?  Not intrinsically, no.  It wasn’t a huge leap to make from where I’d been before with the clues not tying together.  And it didn’t change the way I felt about her.  I mean, I had questions, but they could wait until she told me.  

I realized, too, that she was basically right: I had no concept of what life was like for someone like her.  Not that I needed to put her in some category of us and them, but in comparison to her life, to this new bit of information, my life had been so much easier.  I couldn’t even imagine what would drive someone; a child no less, to make that decision.  How desperate or what circumstances would make that possible.  

And it sort of surprised me how much this new fact didn’t bother me.  Maybe I’d suspected or known it all along.  I think if I wouldn’t have had her in my life already, it might have bothered me more, and that made me a bit ashamed that I even had that thought.  I was better than that.  Or I hoped I was.  I hoped I was before I knew her, but obviously she’d changed things about me—or she’d facilitated parts of me that hadn’t been fully developed before, or only extended to Caroline and no one else.  She made me better because she made me less of a pretentious asshole.  Those women I deleted from my phone—had that been what they’d seen?  Nothing more than a pretentious asshole who fucked them once if they were lucky?  

Wow.  

I needed to apologize.  Again.  Some more.  Forever.  

I didn’t knock, but I made sure I made enough noise that she’d know I was in the bathroom.  She didn’t turn or acknowledge me when I peeked around the shower curtain and stepped into the tub with her.  She was facing away from me, her head under the spray, just standing there letting it run off of her body.  

I sighed and let it out in a deep breath, moving over to her, and slowly let my hands wrap about her stomach until I could pull her back into me.  She didn’t jerk away, so that was a positive sign.  I ducked my head under the water with her, and we just stayed that way for a few minutes, her body leaned into mine.  

I pressed a kiss to her temple, and then her cheek before trailing down to her shoulder.  I rested my chin there, and turned my head so my mouth was by her ear.  “I’m sorry.”

She let out a sigh of her own and pushed back into me more.  “Me, too.”

“You make me better.  Do you get what I mean by that?”

She shrugged.  

“I mean that you’re never afraid to tell me shit I should know, or don’t see.  And I need that.  I need someone to tell me that I don’t know about everything—to remind me.  Remind me I need a reality check.  You keep me grounded and you remind me that I don’t know nearly half as much as I think I do.”

“And that’s good?” she asked.

“Yes, it is.  Because otherwise I can be a real prick.  And I don’t want to be.  I want to be better than that.  For you.  You make me want to be that.”

“Why?” she asked, like this was a foreign concept again.

“Because you deserve that.”

She looked at me sideways, disbelief and wariness there.

“You don’t realize just how much you are to me.  You’re the only one that matters to me.  I don’t want to lose that.  You’re the only contact that I want to talk to in that fucking phone.  The only call that I want to take.”  

I pressed a kiss to her shoulder again.  “And I’m sorry.  I’m sorry that I lose sight of the fact that my life hasn’t been as bad as I think it has.”

She sighed. “Tyler, I didn’t really mean to just unload all of that on you.  I really have no right to tell you shit about your dad.”

“No, you do.  And you’re right about a lot of that, too.  It’s just easier to stay the way we are than to change it.  And I’m just… angry.  I don’t know how to be anything but angry at him anymore.”

“I was angry for a long time, too.”

“About?”

“Everything.  My life.  The hand I got dealt.  What I was doing and why I had to do it instead of someone else.  Why other people seemed to have it so easy.”  She paused.  “But then I’d see someone who had it worse and eventually, it was just easier to let it go.  It didn’t eat away at me then.”

I wanted to ask her what she meant, to get her to tell me about it.  Admit it.  But she wasn’t there yet.

“And I don’t want this to turn into some bullshit about how my life has sucked more than yours, either.  I’m not into pity.  And I don’t truck with people who make me a victim, either.”

“I don’t think you’re a victim.”  Well, I was lying there.  I think she was.  “Or if anything you’re a victim of circumstance, I think.  But I don’t see you… I just see you.”

She nodded. “Ok.  And I don’t want to make you feel bad that your family has been able to give you shit, either.  That wasn’t what I wanted to do.  Or to make you think that you can’t say shit about it.  Or talk to me about it.”

“Ok,” I agreed, squeezing her.  

“Ok,” she said back.  

“Ok,” I echoed, chuckling near her ear until she squirmed away from me.  She turned, smiling, much less serious, and wrapped her arms around my neck, arching on her toes to kiss me.  My reaction was some mix of sigh and groan, because when she arched, her breasts pressed into me and the rest of her wasn’t far behind, and it felt good to just be like this with her again.  We didn’t need to be doing shit; I just missed her this way.  When she pulled back from the kiss, I pushed the wet hair that had gathered in front of her behind her ears, and leaned down for another one.  They were languid and slow, and neither of us seemed in a hurry for it to end.  I rested my forehead against hers when we parted, sighing.  “I missed you naked.”

Her eyes flicked to me, her brow furrowing.  “I’m sorry, Tyler.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“God, I must seem like such a fucking nutcase.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean that I’m a fucking stripper, I take off my clothes for a living.  And I can’t even imagine what you must have been thinking when I was doing that at night but I couldn’t take my clothes off for my own boyfriend.”

“Nah, I get it.”

“Get what?”

I shrugged.  “It’s two completely different things.  You don’t expose yourself in the same way on the stage.  Stripping isn’t the same as showing yourself to me.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me; disbelief.  

“Seriously.  It’s a different kind of vulnerable in a relationship.”  I smiled widely.  “I’m just glad it seems to be over.  ‘Cause I missed you.  All of you.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling at me.  “You’re so fucking weird.”

“Yeah, but you like weird, right?”

She shrugged.  “I guess.  I dunno.”

“You dunno?”

She was smirking.  “Well, I mean I don’t have much to compare to.  I’m not sure what a ‘normal’ guy is like.”

No, given my latest realization, that was probably truer than ever.  She was teasing me though.  “Right.  I’m ok being weird instead of normal.  Or I’m like a normal-weird.”

“You nicknamed your father after a myth on your phone.  That’s not normal, Tyler.”

I laughed. “Yeah, ok.  That might be a little…different.”

“Yeah, most people just go with plain old ‘Dad,’ I think.”

“Didn’t seem fitting.”

“And what would I be?  If you were going to put me in there as a myth…person.”

Oh, man.  What a loaded question.  And how did I decide on the spot like this?  Did I go with overly romantic and sappy?  Pull out the goddesses that were known for their beauty?  She didn’t really go for sweeping romance, although I’d never really tried that.  I’d just been normal and she’d been appreciative because her experiences were so dissimilar to that.  Crap.  “Well, I mean, I could go Aphrodite; she was the goddess of love and beauty,” …not to mention patron of prostitutes, but I’d leave that little nugget alone.  She didn’t seem too impressed with the love and beauty shit.  “Or there’s Leto or Selene, goddesses of the moon.”  I paused, thinking.  I could go with the Muses, but they wouldn’t really make sense because I had no creative aspirations and anything else was gonna sound way too fucking cheesy.  “Psyche personified the soul.  She was the wife of Eros, the God of Love, and their myth is about how love and soul come together.  It’s the only time that I know of that a myth ends with a happily ever after.  She was born human and became a goddess…”  I trailed off.  I sighed.  “Honestly, none of them really fit.  And I don’t want to have you as something else in my phone.  I just like that you’re Allison.  I don’t want you to be anyone else.”  

One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen | Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty | Twenty-One | Twenty-Two |  Twenty-Three  |  Twenty-Four  |  Twenty-Five  |  Twenty-Six  |  Twenty-Seven | Twenty-Eight |