Page 73 of He's Not for Me

The Sound is right in front of me, black under the night sky but not silent, gentle waves lapping against the shore. There’s a light breeze that cuts across my face, but when I reach the dock, I keep going, my footsteps plodding over worn wooden planks. At the end of the dock, I sit, my feet dangling over the water. It’s overcast tonight, so there are no stars to speak of, only the occasional glimpse of a half moon as the clouds drift across the sky. But I tilt my head back anyway, drinking in the vastness above me and before me, my tiny self in the face of infinity, the total peace that comes frombeing alone before such enormity.

I hear him coming long before he speaks.

“It iscoldasfuckout here.” Cole flops down onto the edge of the dock beside me, snuggling into my side as he crosses his arms over his chest, shoving his hands into his armpits. I throw a protective arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, nobody made you follow me. I was just — I dunno, I needed a break. Too loud.”

“Yeah, I get it.” We’re quiet for a while, dangling our feet in midair off the dock, listening to the night. “Actually, you know — it’s not too bad. It was getting kinda stuffy in there.”

“That’s what I thought,” I agree.

He leans into my side, and I listen to him breathing, and it’s not the first time in the past few months that I’ve found myself reflecting — that no matter what I thought I knew about Cole, no matter how much I’ve idolized him, no matter how many times I’ve compared us in my head and found myself lacking — that deep down inside us, there’s something that is the same. And every day, that lonely thing in me reaches out to that lonely thing in him, and when we come together, those broken parts of us are made whole.

Beside me, Cole huffs, chafing his hands on his thighs. “Okay, I’m fucking freezing. Come inside with me and I’ll suck you off?”

I can’t help cracking up. “What about the rest of theparty?”

“We’ll sneak up the back stairs.” He stands up, holding out his hand. “Come on — warm blankets, bare skin, lots of kissing, saving your boyfriend from certain death —”

I let him drag me to my feet. “My boyfriend, who is never, ever a drama queen —”

Cole drapes his arms around my shoulders, dipping his face toward mine. “You love it though—”

“Yeah —” I whisper, leaning in to brush our lips together. “I really fucking do.”