Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Now I stiffen. “What about?”
“If we do this, I just…” It takes him a long second to find the words. “I don’t think I could handle seeing you with other guys.” His chest rises. “Korey was hard enough for me, honestly—and before you say anything, I didn’t go into this thinking I’d make that stipulation because I always thought I’d give someone the chance to look around before committing to me, but I already have feelings for you, Luna, and I just can’t…I can’t do that. If that’s a dealbreaker…”
“It’s not,” I say with a strong shake of my head, my heart in my throat. “It’s not at all. I definitely couldn’t stomach seeing you with other girls either.”
Joana was his fake date and that hurt enough to kill me.
He eases, then scratches the back of his neck. “I haven’t been seeing anyone for a while, actually.”
“Like sex or…?”
“Yeah, sex.” Hearing Donnelly talk about sex again is blanketing me in an inferno. I pretend we’ve landed our spacecraft onto a molten planet. “I haven’t been with anyone in…” His brows crinkle, unsure of the exact time. “It’s been long. Longer than I’ve ever gone without getting off with another person.” He searches my eyes as he says, “But I’ve been tested. All negative.”
I go quieter, nervous. Not because of tests. I’ve been to the doctor recently, and the tests were negative too. I want to mention it, but I’m hung up on something else.
He tenses. “You okay?”
“Um, I…haven’t gone without sex for that long.” Guilt churns, but it’s not like we were together. It was just sex. I tell him, “It’s been recent. Not that recent, but it hasn’t been a long time, I guess.”
“Korey?” He looks heartbroken already.
“No,” I say fast. “No way. It was before Philly Comic-Con. Before the yacht trip, the one around the Baja Peninsula, when Sulli got engaged.”
His muscles loosen, but he must see the guilt eating at me because he says, “Don’t feel badly about it, Luna. If this were reversed, you know, I’d feel worse thinking that you didn’t get laid when you could’ve.”
This makes me smile. “So I should feel badly for you then?”
“Nah, never pity me.” He leans forward, just to slip the cigarette behind my ear. His fingers brush a strand of my hair and the softness of my cheek.
I feel like I’m rising off the rug. Like we have the power of flight together. “Why didn’t you have sex then?”
“I just got in my head about it.” His eyes dart through mine, and the unsaid words, because of you, thicken the room with electric tension. Slowly, he leans back from me. “You might think you’re not girlfriend material, but I’ve wanted to take you out for a while. I just couldn’t.”
My pulse ascends again. He’s wanted to take me out, unearthly reader.
He’s wanted to be with me for longer than now.
After the Wawa rejection, hearing this is celestial music to my ears. I am someone he’s seen as more than a one-time experiment and a hookup.
I’m someone he’s wanted to date.
I think things through. “It still sort of feels like we’re playing with borrowed time or something,” I tell him. “Like we really can’t, but we’re pretending we can.”
“Yeah, I know,” he breathes. “But I’d rather take this moment for what it is than be afraid of tomorrow.”
Hope surges. It’s scary to be hopeful when everything could come crashing down, but I’ve learned with him that I want to be less cynical today. I want to believe that good things can happen, and I don’t want to miss out on the windows that we could fly through.
“I want to date you too,” I tell him now, feeling like this could work.
Light sparkles his blue eyes before his lips lift into a smile. “I think we’re seeing each other, Luna Hale.”
Something brightens tenfold inside me.
And then he adds, “Or should I say, Illyana Dallas?”
“StaleBread89,” I grin. “What’s the story behind your handle?”
“I was gonna ask you first.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet.” I lick more pudding. “Illyana gave you the correct X-Men recs. You were reading the whole New Mutants line.”
Realization kicks him. “Shit.” He laughs. “Illyana Rasputin?”
“Yep, her alias is called—”
“Magik,” he sighs. “Fuck, how did I not get that?” He smiles over at me. “Dallas, though? What’s that about?”
“Korben Dallas. He’s from The Fifth Element. It’s one of my—”
“Favorite movies, fuuuuck,” Donnelly groans like it was right there. “222?”
“I’m the second kid in my family.” I shrug. “The fact that there’s three twos is just random.” I touch my toes to his ankle. “Now you. What’s Stale Bread all about?”
“It’s been one of my usernames since I was a kid. I was just pissed one day that there was no food in the house but this forgotten slice of bread in the pantry.” He stares at the beer in his loose grip and the half-consumed roast pork sandwich on the plastic bag. It takes him a longer second to speak. “Most money went to drugs. There were months when the water was cut off. Some weeks we didn’t have electricity, so I didn’t know if I’d be eating tomorrow, so I ate that bread and tried not to be angry about it. Then I went to the local library, got on the internet, and the only thing I could think of was Stale Bread.”