One More Time (Bremmy 1)

Chapterish 18

[Quote Aesthetic of the Chapterish]

...

He stops in front of a second door and kicks the screen open. We cross the threshold and I find myself in his room.

His. Room.

It smells the same. Just like my house did. After nine years I still remember it like this. How many high school afternoons we stole when his parents were away. How many nights I snuck in through the porch. We spent minutes, hours, and days just lounging together –waiting for something we didn't know to happen.

Everything is exactly as I last saw it. His bed, against the side wall. His bookshelf with sports trophies and swimming medals and tattered copies of old books. Our high school sports pennant from senior year taped to the wall above his desk.

Brooks drops me down on the bed. I fall on it upside down.

He stands in front of me, peeling off his T-shirt. He scrunches it into a ball and throws it into the corner.

Another flash of lightning. He's momentarily white as marble. His chest and abs and OMG I'm dead. I watch him crawl into the bed, slowly prowling toward me.

Thunder. Anticipation. Brooks.

He kisses his way up my legs. I have goose bumps again, but for a different reason this time. I pull my hoodie over my head and toss it on the floor. The spot beneath me in the bed is damp and cool. My white tank clings to my torso like wet paper.

Claps of thunder hurt my ears. Lightning zigzags across the walls –across his face. He props himself up on one arm next to me, sitting on his side. His long hair is still dripping, the droplets falling over his eyelashes and down his nose and onto his neck and OMG pooling in his clavicles. Brooks hovers above, not kissing me, just grazing my lips gently.

The rain is falling hard and fuck so am I.

He puts his free hand on my chest and moves it up to my throat and he squeezes lightly. A light choke. He pushes my hair from my neck. His eyes follow mine the entire time. They're almost warning of something. The pressure of his hand on my neck is electrifying; my breath is heavy underneath it.

"Is this the part where you kill me?" I whisper.

I move my left hand to his face and tuck the hair behind his ear the way I've seen him do himself. A deep gray-blue is swirling in his eyes and I am sure the storm outside is jealous. "Cause you know, I'd be okay with that."

And then we're kissing. His lips warm, his mouth moving over mine. All firm and intense and soft and supple and shit. What a combo. He rolls over me, sliding his hand beneath my butt. He loves my butt.

"What if someone comes back?" I whisper. His lips curve into a smile against mine.

"It's dark. No one will see." He laughs.

"What! It's not that dark," I say quietly. I'm starting to pant.

Brooks's full weight is on me and I don't even care. It's not enough of him. I breathe him in. I breathe it all in –the rainwater –the salt –the skin. God, the skin. I think I'm actually salivating. I know parts of me are salivating.

"I know you're ready," he says. He pulls a condom from his nightstand and turns back to me. "You put it on."

I take it and open it, tossing the wrapper aside.

My breathing is so quick and he's so heavy I think I might choke. But I can barely do anything but try to stop from screaming.

"No one's here. You don't have to be quiet." Brooks almost reads my mind.

At his words I lose it. I can't help the noises coming out of my mouth. I'm grateful for the thunder. It claps at just the right time.

The parallel. I can't.

...

We lay face up on his bed, the plaid sheets wrapped around us in the sticky heat. The thunder is far now. I almost can't hear it. And there's no more lightning. It's just the rain. Just the soft pitter-patter on the roof and the cool breeze coming in through the open screen door.

I notice new things in his room now, things that prove time has passed, things that prove Brooks is in fact a different person than the one I left behind. A UNC sweatshirt is hanging on his closet doorknob. An Edge duffle is in the corner by his door. There are new pictures on his dresser –pictures with teammates and friends whose names I don't know.

I lean over him and kiss his bare chest. His perfectly sculpted, magazine-worthy chest. My nails strum against his skin. Brooks smiles at me and tucks my hair behind my ear. What a perfect moment to say nothing. To be nothing. Think nothing.

Shit, but I feel everything. I feel the word I want to say. The word I'm too smart to say. But looking at him looking at me, post romp in the rain –shit, do I want to say it.

Maybe it will pass. I wish I could say it did before. Last time. Maybe I'll blame the moon for all its judging. Maybe it's moon's fault. Brooks and I are like the tides. We come and go with highs and lows –move out for a while, but not for good. We always come back in. The cycle is strong. The pull of gravity is strong.

Fuck the moon.

Fuck the tides.

Fuck us.