My gaze roams the mess and junk everywhere. It’s a good thing I’d forgotten how awful this apartment was before I decided to join Neil here. Three guys living in a run-down flop house; that’s what this place looks like. Still, it’s kind of fun living with Neil in this hideous apartment. We are all sort of like a rowdy family here and there is a sense that something bordering on exciting is always happening.
I’m never bored here, and it is never quiet, too quiet, like it is in Jack’s house.
The guys bicker. They laugh. They bullshit and tell stories; stories about the road, stories about girls, stories about anything, and stories about nothing. They create music. They play music. They party. They fuck. Yep, that’s pretty much guy world. Guy world, it seems, is the same everywhere.
I turn off the TV and move to the bookcase. Lots of pictures here. Some of them make me cringe. The guys with girls from the road. The guys performing. The guys misbehaving. Shit…I pick up a picture…I wonder if Les Wilson’s girlfriend has seen this?
Lame, Chrissie, lame. She must have. There is no way to be in the living room and miss these darn photos. I set it back and continue to study the rest of the pictures. There’s only one here I could give Neil shit over, him downing shooters from between some girl’s tits at what looks like an after-party. But that’s it. Just one. And since I don’t know when it was taken, it could have been when we were broken up, so there isn’t any point to giving him shit over this.
I smile as I stare at the photo, though I suppose I shouldn’t be smiling. It’s just he looks kind of shy even grabbing an alcohol shot with his lips from a girl’s breasts.
After settling back down on the couch, I wrap a comforter around me. Life isn’t bad here. It’s not exactly good either. It’s just different.
~~~
Hands gently shake me. My eyes fly open. Neil is standing above me and the room is filled with mid-morning light.
“Fuck, why’d you wait up for me?” he asks, a not fully concealed edge to his voice. “I told you not to.”
I yawn and toss the blanket off me. “I didn’t wait up. I fell asleep out here.”
Neil starts walking to the bedroom. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. Let me sleep until dinnertime. We’ve got the sendoff on the road party tonight that Ernie put together and I’m really not in the mood for it. Let me sleep today.”
The door shuts before I can answer him. Crap, what was that all about? Everything about him screams that he wants to be left alone, but I follow Neil to the bathroom anyway. He’s already in the shower when I get there, clothes in the hamper and steam on the mirror.
I ease up to sit on the edge of the vanity counter. “Have you just been walking all this time?”
“Pretty much,” is his abrupt response through the shower glass.
“Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong, Chrissie. Just because I do something without you doesn’t mean there is something wrong.”
My cheeks flush from that one. “Good to know. I’ll try to remember that one.” I say it deliberately silly and Neil laughs.
He opens the shower door and peeks out at me, his green eyes smiling. “I love you, Chrissie. Now go away and let me shower.”
I laugh, tossing a towel at him. “Wouldn’t you rather have me in the shower?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
“Not today. Any day, all days, but not today.”
The shower door closes. He starts to wash himself there, and seeing him through the blurring glass of the door, touching himself there, lathering himself there, knowing what he’s doing yet not seeing it clearly enough, gets me extremely hot.
I’m about to take off my shirt and panties when the water shuts off and the door opens. Neil grabs a towel, rubbing it across his head, then swiping his body before wrapping it around his hips.
I don’t know why I ask it, but I do. “Where did you go last night?”
Neil looks up, startled. “I told you. For a walk.”
“Until 10 in the morning, Neil? You expect me to buy that one?”
I don’t know what he sees on my face, but he tosses the towel onto the counter and walks from the room.
“Fuck, Chrissie. Are you really going to start getting jealous now? After all I’ve been through with you, now is when you decide you can’t trust me and start becoming jealous? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Of course, the way he says it makes me sound stupid. I follow him to the bedroom and pause just inside the doorway. Neil is already in bed, lying on his back. He stares at me. I stare at him.
Neil starts to laugh, shaking his head at me. “Jeez, Chrissie, I can’t believe you got jealous. But you are so cute when you get princess-ape-shit jealous.”
He laughs harder and I glare at him. “I’m not jealous. I did not get anything close to princess-ape-shit jealous.”
He turns onto his side, his cheek resting in his palms, his soft green eyes bright with humor. “Yes, you did. Admit it. You’re jealous.” His expression changes into sweet Neil. “I kind of like it. You being possessive and jealous for a change.” Then comes a subtle darkening of his gaze, and I feel it there. “It’s a fucking turn-on to see you be jealous over me for a change. Why don’t you come back to bed for a while? You should probably sleep, too. We have a long night tonight.”
“I don’t want to because you’re being a jerk and you won’t answer me. Worse, you’re making fun of me and I hate that.”
That came out more peevish than I wanted it to, but it makes Neil’s eyes gleam more. I wonder if I am starting to feel a touch possessive and jealous over him. He certainly thinks so and he’s enjoying it.
Glaring at him, I sink down on the bed, sitting on my knees, close to him without touching him.
“You’re such a conceited jerk,” I murmur, tight-lipped. “Do you get jealous over me?”
He eases back against the pillow, hair pushed out of his face by his palm, his gaze serious and tender. “All the time.”
I lie on my side, facing him. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
His laughter is not of humor. It is more a rattling of exasperation. “How could you not fucking know that? I think of you all the time when we’re not together. I get jealous when I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re the first girl I’ve ever felt this way about.”
My brows hitch upward in my forehead. “Really?”
He nods. It sounds like fluff, the kind of thing you say to a girl to put to rest questions you don’t want to answer, and yet Neil is never anything less than honest with me and in my center, in a sweetly warming way, it feels like the truth.
“You didn’t feel that way about your ex?” I whisper cautiously, since it is territory we don’t discuss very often.
His eyes lock on mine. “You are the only girl I’ve ever felt this way about.”
Second surprise. Things were intense with his ex-girlfriend. A lot of shitty history. Neil beat up Andy Despensa and put him in the hospital for fucking her. None of this makes sense, him claiming I’m the only girl he’s ever been jealous over, but instinct tells me he’s not lying.
I mold into his side, resting my head on his shoulder, and ease forward to kiss him on the chest. My hand starts gliding across his abdomen, then lower, lower.
Neil adjusts me against his side. “I’m tired, Chrissie. Let me sleep.”
I brush him there. “You are also really hard, Neil.”
A rough, frustrated laugh. “I always get hard when you touch me. Doesn’t always mean I want sex.”
I stroke him lightly and he groans. I peek up at him. “No?”
He looks down at me. “Why don’t you kiss him,” he whispers, “and put us both to sleep smiling?”
Oh yuck, not that again. Why do all guys want that? I continue the caresses, playing with his cock in fast little drive-bys, and he melts into my touch but nothing more. He doesn’t move into me. He doesn’t kiss me. He doesn’t touch me. Unfortunately, every time I stroke his erection I get a little hotter and anxious in my flesh.