True (True Believers #1)(31)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Maybe I am passionate about certain things,” I told him.

He laughed. “Your passion is about to kill me. Fuck.” Standing up, he pointed his finger at me. “I’m turning the light out and we’re going to sleep. Stay on your side of the bed and try not to be so damn hot, understand?”

I made a face, using my fingers to peel my upper lip back to my nose in a move I hadn’t attempted since second grade.

He laughed. “That will do it, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The light went out. The mattress groaned and sagged in the dark as he rejoined me on the bed, punching at his pillow, as far away from me as humanly possible on a narrow twin bed. I tried to hover near the wall. He kissed the back of my head.

“Good night, beautiful.”

“Good night.”

I lay in the dark and listened to the sound of his breath as it slowed and evened out, and I marveled at where I was and who I was with.

It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t logical.

Yet there was no place I’d rather be.

***

When I woke up, Tyler was watching me. He gave me a soft smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I was stiff from staying in one position the entire night, and I was instantly worried about bed head and morning breath. Rolling my neck, I covered my mouth as I yawned and tentatively snaked my arm out to stretch it. I let my hand land on his warm chest.

“You stiff?” he asked, giving me a soft kiss. He looked sleepy, his beard stubble even more pronounced after just eight hours of sleep.

I thought about the process of hair pushing itself out of our follicles while we slept and was amused at the imagery. Sometimes I wondered if I was the only one who found science so entertaining.

“Roll over, I’ll rub your shoulders. This mattress sucks.”

Was he for real? He was going to give me a back rub? That was definitely high on the Hot List. I complied and rolled over because the idea was totally appealing. Every muscle in my neck and shoulders had kinked. I visualized an intricate Celtic knot beneath my skin. When his hands landed on my flesh, I sighed in pleasant anticipation of a relaxing massage of my muscles.

We seemed to have a different concept of what relaxing was. Tyler dug into my shoulders with an iron grip, rubbing so hard that my teeth rattled as I jerked back and forth on the bed. I was definitely awake now, if not looser.

“Thanks,” I said, wanting to laugh. Generosity fail. But it was the thought that counted.

Twenty minutes and one McDonald’s drive-thru later, we were pulling up in front of my dorm. Tyler gave me a long lingering kiss, one that made me forget completely that I hadn’t brushed my teeth. “You busy tonight?”

“No.”

“Want to watch a movie or something? We can hang here in your room.”

“Cool. Text me when you’re done working.” I went to the front door, still sleepy, in desperate need of a yoga class, wearing the rumpled clothes I’d been wearing when I left the shelter the day before, blissfully happy.

The feeling continued when Tyler had no problem watching ID TV with me and listening to a medical examiner explain how he had used the clues left on a murder victim’s body to solve the crime.

We were snuggled up on my bed, Tyler’s back propped against the wall, me sprawled across the mattress, head and upper body in his lap. His fingers lazily stroked across my arm.

“So that’s what you want to do?” he asked. “Comb over dead people?”

“Yes.” I knew that most people thought my particular interest in forensics was bizarre and that I must be missing a compassion gene in order to be able to slice into people. But the opposite was true—I wanted to give answers about the dead to the living. If I had an iron stomach and a logical mind with great memorization skills, what better way to put them to use than conducting autopsies and giving families peace of mind? Or at least closure.

Maybe it would have been more strategic to keep my future plans on the down low, or at the very least, not expose Tyler to the reality of it on a TV show filmed in a morgue, but that seemed dishonest. This was me.

“You are one bad-ass chick, Rory. You look so sweet and naïve, but damn, your pretty face hides an amazing mind.”

The praise made me feel a little giddy. I smiled up at him. “Thank you. And the human body is fascinating, what can I say?”

His eyebrows went up and down. “I can’t argue with that.”

I laughed, enjoying the easy feel of lying on him, my face next to his stomach, his arms wrapped around me. I realized that very rarely did I touch anyone. Kylie was a hugger and she laid one on me every few days, and I returned it, liking that clear indicator of true friendship. My dad occasionally patted my head or moved me forward with his hand on the small of my back. I had kissed a guy or two. But that was it. Since my mother died, I hadn’t been touched. I hadn’t realized I had missed it.

But now it felt like the nerve endings of my skin were awakening after dormancy. With more than a million sensory receptors distributed throughout my skin, every single one seemed to have been lazily stroked into awareness by Tyler. My Meissner’s corpuscles were registering every touch and greedily responding with shivers, goose bumps, and a rise in serotonin.

It felt freaking awesome, and I never wanted to go back to a world where I existed behind a metaphorical glass wall watching everyone else interact with each other. No matter what happened, if Tyler changed his mind and decided tomorrow he no longer wanted to hang out with me, I would have that knowledge moving forward. I would be different. Not that I wanted to think about the future or an end or anything. I just wanted to enjoy the moment.

“Fuck me, that is that guy’s large intestine laying on the table.” Tyler cocked his head slightly, a grimace on his face as he paused in the act of lifting his bottle of water.

“It’s in the way,” I told him. “There are a lot of organs packed into our chest and abdominal cavities.”

“That’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever said,” he teased.

“Really? Then I guess I need to step it up.”

“I’d like to hear that. Talk dirty to me, Rory.”

I opened my mouth, wanting to accept the challenge. But nothing came out. My mind went totally blank. We both laughed.

“That’s about what I thought,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to be dirty enough for both of us.”

“Okay.” I stared up at him, wondering if tonight was the night. If he had bought condoms. If he was going to yank my shirt off over my head and make me feel more of what I had in the car.