It was infuriating.
I shot him a pointed look at his spot on the couch and moved to sit on my grandma’s ancient recliner.
This was another game we played. I wouldn’t sit with him until he asked me.
No. Cajoled me into it. I resisted every time. I knew I couldn’t make anything too easy for him. Grandma had slapped that bit of wisdom deep into my skull.
“Psst,” he called to me.
I ignored him, eyes glued to the screen.
“Scarlett,” he tried. “You don’t have to sit on your grandma’s nasty old chair.”
“That couch is just as nasty,” I pointed out. Everything in the place was nasty. Old and cheap and dirty. I lived here and even I thought so.
“Well, you don’t have to sit alone over there.”
“You’ve taken up the whole couch. Where would I sit?” As I said it, I shot him an arch look.
He grinned at me. He was sprawled out, long arms perched at the top corner of the sofa. He kicked one knee up, throwing the other on the ground, and patted his thighs. “You can sit right here.”
I eyed him warily. This was new and a little intimidating. “I’m hungry. Do you want a snack?”
“Do you have snacks?”
Of course not. We never did. It was a wonder I grew so much with the lack of food available when I was at home. Then again, I got free lunch at school and had dinner at Gram’s more often than not.
“No,” I said, sorry I’d asked. But I was hungry.
“You should let me give you money for food,” he added, his tone careful and blank.
This was a very old and very sore subject. And he knew it.
I glared at him. “I won’t take any more of your charity. It’s bad enough your Gram buys me clothes for school and feeds me dinner almost every night.”
His jaw set stubbornly, and I was pissed and bummed. If we got into a fight, it would ruin the rest of the day.
But then he sighed and looked away, breaking the tension.
Sometimes when we locked eyes, it was like predators having a standoff. One wrong move and—blood.
On the flip side, if one backed down then—peace.
He’d backed down for this one, thank God, because I never could have.
He paused the movie.
“Well, I need food,” he said. “Is it all right if I order myself a pizza?”
“All right.”
“I can’t eat a whole one myself. I’ll only order it if you promise to eat some, too.”
That was a compromise I could live with, and he knew it. It didn’t feel so much like charity if he was feeding himself and I was just sharing.
I grabbed the phone and brought it to him. While he dialed, I sat down carefully between his thighs.
We’d never done this before. Usually he just put his arm around me and we’d progress through varying degrees of touching each other tentatively. I’d lay my head on his chest, sometimes, if he was extra bold, he’d rub my knee with his hand.
Once we’d even spooned, my back to his front both of us turned to the TV. That had happened two weeks ago and it’d been the most exciting moment of my life.
But sitting between his thighs felt like a decidedly bigger step.
Tentatively I leaned back into his chest while he dialed up the pizza place.
“Any toppings you prefer?” he asked me
I was having a hard time finding my breath. “Whatever. You pick. You’re paying.”
I always said this and never meant it. We got the same thing every time. It was my favorite. I couldn’t even have said if Dante particularly liked it, but he always got it.
“Yeah,” he said into the phone, his free arm moving to drape over my shoulder. “I’ll take a large pie, thin crust with jalapeños, chicken, and sausage. Extra sauce.”
When he hung up I pushed play on the movie again.
We sat stiffly like that for a few minutes before I felt him put pressure on my shoulders, pulling me back more firmly against him.
“Relax,” he said into my hair. “I won’t bite. Just lay on me.”
I tried, but it was impossible to relax like that. He wasn’t relaxed either though, to be fair. I could feel the tension coiled in him like a spring about to bust.
I wiggled my hips, pushing closer to him. He jerked like I’d hurt him, and I stopped. And that’s when I felt it, that hardness poking into me from behind, through our clothes.
I swallowed and spoke, my voice like a croak, “Is this comfortable? Should I move?”
He didn’t answer, but he was breathing hard into my ear.
I laid back, putting the weight of my shoulders more firmly to his chest. I wasn’t any more relaxed, but I didn’t really care. This felt better than relaxed, like something important was happening, and I didn’t want it to stop.
His arm around me moved suddenly, went up, gripping the top of the sofa above us, his knuckles white with the pressure of it.
I started to sit up to look at him, but he stopped me with a touch from his free hand to my belly.
I stilled, my eyes glued to that hand and the way it kept moving, stroking my stomach, pushing me harder into him.
I didn’t stop him, and he just kept rubbing. I started to move my hips, rubbing against that foreign hardness at my back. He didn’t stop me.
This went on for some time. Not progressing, but not stopping, which seemed like enough for a while.