Love, Lies and Unfiltered Hearts

Unexpected Intimacy

JOSIE

Dinner that night is quiet and strange. Emmy talks constantly, which is the only reason there's any sound at all. She tells us about Gerald the caterpillar and a boy in her class who ate glue and the lyrics to a song she made up that doesn't have a tune yet.

Drew doesn't look at me once.

His eyes are fixed on his plate as he eats, and he answers Caroline in single syllables and leaves before anyone finishes. The room feels smaller without him in it, which makes no sense and I hate that it makes no sense.

After dinner, Caroline takes Emilia upstairs for a bath. I'm rinsing the plates at the kitchen sink when Drew's voice comes from behind me.

"We need to talk," he says.

I don't turn around. I can feel him there, though, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, the weight of his stare pressing into my back.

"About what?" I ask.

"About you and… Max." He grits the name out like it's something rotten on his tongue.

I set the plate down and dry my hands slowly and deliberately. Then I speak without facing him. "I've been invisible to you for three years, Drew. Why the sudden interest in my relationship?"

The words hang in the air for exactly one second before I hear him move.

He stops inches behind me before I can process what is happening. His body is so close I can feel the heat radiating off him. I turn immediately and back into the kitchen cabinet, trapped.

*Oh no.*

"You don't get to say it like that," he says, his voice low and tight. "What relationship?"

His eyes lock onto mine, and there's something in them I haven't seen before, a warmth that makes my chest tighten and my breath catch. Then his gaze drops to my mouth, like he's forgotten why we are even standing there in the first place.

"Drew…" I blurt out in panic.

His lips crash onto mine, silencing whatever I'm about to say. It's firm and insistent as his tongue slips past my lips, claiming, questioning, demanding. It feels wrong and strange, but at the same time, it draws out an unexpected moan from me.

Then his arms wrap around my waist and drag my body against his. When my brain finally catches up, I try to shove him off, but he doesn't budge.

His hand grabs my hair and tilts my head back to deepen the kiss as his leg wedges between my legs, moving up to spread them further apart. I feel him hard against my thigh, and I freeze.

Drew has never been like this before, not once, not with me.

I whimper as his mouth starts to trail down my neck. "Please… stop."

He abruptly releases me and stumbles back half a step. Something flickers across his face, hurt, anger, regret, I can't tell, but it vanishes fast before I can name it. He turns without a word and walks out of the kitchen.

I stand there alone, gripping the edge of the counter, trembling, my back still pressed against the cabinet. My heart is slamming against my ribs. My lips are swollen, wet, aching, and the warmth spreading through my body is threatening to undo me, until the loss of his proximity cools it just as fast.

I press a hand to my chest and try to breathe.

What the hell just happened?

After what seems like ages, I go back to my room and open my laptop.

For a long time, I don't write anything.

Then I do.

I write about what it feels like to have your body say yes when your brain is screaming no. I write about not pushing someone away fast enough. I write about the shame of a moan you didn't want to give. I write about saying please stop and meaning it, and being afraid of how close you came to not saying it at all.

I post it and go to sleep.

* * *

Saturday starts with Emmy.

She's buried under her blanket when I go in at six, and the only thing visible is the top of her head and one hand dangling off the mattress. I sit on the edge of the bed and shake her shoulder gently.

"Emmy. Piano."

She groans into the pillow. "Five more minutes."

"We've had five more minutes twice already."

She drags herself upright looking genuinely offended by the morning.

The bath takes twenty minutes because she wants to explain to me in full detail how Gerald the caterpillar has now built a cocoon, and what she thinks he'll look like when he comes out.

I help her pick her clothes. She goes for a purple star shirt and green sneakers that don't match anything.

"Those don't match," I say.

"I know," she says, and doesn't want my opinion about it.

*Fair enough. She's six and she's already figured out something most people never do.*

I do her braids while she tells me about a dream involving a flying dog named Captain that could only speak French.

When we're done, she thunders down the stairs ahead of me, loud enough to wake the street, and the sound makes me feel less alone in the house than I have all week.