CHAPTER 28

Without much effort, Levi begins to occupy more and more of my thoughts. Things begin to change. At first, it's gradual: I sit out in my garden sometimes. I attend family dinner with my parents without being begged to – a shocking feat for them.

I avoid Evaline's suspicious eyes at all costs because she's beginning to notice too.

And then, more obvious changes: I leave my house to see Levi at Gallery 180, and I kiss him out back where he takes his smoke breaks.

I seem happier, according to my mother. Maybe it's because my shoulders feel lighter. Levi thinks he's a burden. I don't know if I'll ever tell him that, because of him, I feel more unburdened than I ever have before.

June comes to an end with no paintings, but we text a total of six times. The content of Levi's texts is important to me. He doesn't do small talk. He's real and true:

I'm still low.

And then, me: Are you making it through?

Him: I'm making it through.

Then, at the beginning of July, him: Why do you like me?

He deleted it almost immediately, but I've begun to live for Levi's texts. I saw it before he deleted it, and I answered him anyway: Because you are altogether lovely.

Sometimes, when we haven't talked for more than a few days, he'll text to ask if he's done something wrong. Or if I am mad at him. I reassure him as best as I can each time.

Levi's low begins to lift sometime in late July, and he produces one new painting. A peace lily he's been working on at the gallery.

I cancel a meeting to meet him at the gallery just before closing time to see it. My father is in that meeting, so I'm sure my mother will be itching to know why I skipped. But Levi is beginning to find some stability, and, if she knew about me and Levi, she would understand why that is such a big deal.

"I can have a peace lily anytime I want," I tell him while he smokes outside. "In fact, I have one right now on my desk."

He pulls me into the gallery and into a small office where he's been painting, his laugh ringing through the quiet space. I'm captivated by the sound of Levi's laugh.

"Let me show you the difference," he says. "My peace lily is big and strong and will remain that way forever because it has everything it needs to survive. Your peace lily is at risk of dying every single day. Its survival depends on you, and you don't have your happiness, remember? So, your peace lily can't be truly happy either."

"Is it really necessary to compare my happiness to a plant like this?" I ask while studying the piece. What I really want to tell him is that perhaps he might know where to find my happiness. Perhaps, my happiness is him.

He says yes, because it signifies how the things around us can be affected by our moods. I understand the subtext, so I trap him in his own net. "Do you think you destroy things and make them die because you have Bipolar Disorder?"

He contemplates dodging the question, I can see it in his eyes. Then, he tells me the truth: "Yes."

I kiss him then, because his resilience makes me want to be a better human being. He kisses me back and I want to eat his face and fuck him right here in this office where he's been painting.

But I just kiss him soft and sweet. Like a missionary-style guy.

"You want to get out of here?" he says, leaving my lips to leave bite marks down my neck. He sucks at my Adam's apple, and I have to slow us down or we'll truly fuck right here.

The gallery is empty when we leave. I carry the painting out. Levi grabs his sketchpad, locks up, and we walk to my car. He slides into the passenger seat as if he has always belonged there.

He looks wonderful. His eyes are brighter than they've been in a long time. His movements, purposeful. For now, his near-catatonic low seems to be behind us. His meds are working, he told me yesterday, and his elation over his stable moods reminds me so much of Nicholas.

Traffic is great, and we get to my place in record time. Levi is on me as soon as I pull into the garage and switch off the ignition.

"I did a sketch for another painting," he says between kisses.

I suck inside his mouth, pulling his tongue into mine. "Yeah? Let me see."

"It's the river we visited in May. Or June. I can't remember," he says urgently, reaching for the buttons at my collar. "The water. It moves, and once it's moved, you can't ever find it again. You can never find that one single drop of water ever again."

"Every drop goes to a place no one can find?" I ask, eating at his mouth.

He nods desperately, working my buttons and nipping at my lips. "Maybe we can have the peace that the river has one day. Maybe we can flow along our own path, like the river, unafraid of sending parts of ourselves to places unknown."

I pull away and reach over to take his sketchpad, but Levi yanks it out of my hand and tosses it on the backseat. "I gave you that whole speech because we don't have time to look at it and reflect," he says. Bites to my neck. He's so fucking good at this. And it's getting awkward kissing and groping like this across our seats.

"Let's get inside," I murmur against his skin.

"Fuck it, Hayden. Fuck me here, in your car." He buries his fingers into my hair at the back of my head. "I owe you a blowjob," he pants into my mouth. "Move your seat all the way back, hot guy."

I do, and Levi climbs over, dropping to his knees between my legs. He lifts his head, and the back of his head connects with the horn. The blast of sound pierces through the quiet evening. Levi laughs, and the sound is like magic. His spirits have lifted considerably.

He removes my belt skillfully despite the urgency of his movements. I lift so he can yank my pants below my ass, along with my boxers. Then, he closes his fist around my dick. He's rough. Confident in the way he handles my cock.

Levi swallows me whole – no prelude – pulling a controlled hiss from my throat. He's taking me like a champ. I don't try to control anything, letting him remain in charge. His deep, even breaths fill the quiet. Will he choke if I slam up into his throat?

I'm harder than I've ever been. Closer to blowing than I've ever been in such a short number of seconds.

Levi tugs at my balls hard. He isn't going in soft and gentle. He tongues my slit with a sureness that has the back of my head pressing into the headrest. I have always been in charge. And I still could be, but fuck, Levi is a sensation on his knees like this. My gasps don't sound like my own. They're coming from a place inside me I thought had died a long time ago.

Maybe I'll . . .

No.

Levi looks up at me, letting my cock slip from his wet mouth. "Fuck my mouth, Hayden. Please," he begs.

I increase the force of my grip at the back of his head, take hold of my cock, and feed it back to him. Once inside the heat of his mouth, I push his face forward and give it to him as best as I can allow myself to. I fuck that mouth, nearly brutalizing his lips. Saliva leaks out of the corners of his mouth. Yet still, I hold back. I know he wants more, but I can't give him more than this. I don't know him and his triggers well enough yet. I have to be careful.

Ripping him away from my dick, because I want to be inside him when I come, I pull him up to straddle me. He comes so willingly. So much desperation in his eyes.

"Fuck me, Hayden. Please. Right here. Right now. Please."

I have ached for this man for months. Dreamed about him. Daydreamed about him and all the things I would do to him and with him. I'm relieved he"s not manic. But would I have fucked him even if he was? The true horror in the answer is that I would have. It would've been the first mistake I would've made with him, and it would've been the end of us. I know this.

Levi tears through his clothing, awkwardly shifting to get his pants off. I reach into the console for a condom and a bottle of lube. It's only seconds, and I'm inside him, helping him bear down until my cock is buried deep inside him.

I'm careful not to fuck him too hard, and I know it's not enough. He's ravenous, clawing at the back of my neck, urging me to go harder.

I don't give in.

I can't.

I just can't.

So, I distract him with biting kisses to his neck, sucking the uncontrolled pulse there into my mouth. Levi's hips rock against me, meeting my thrusts with expertise and confidence.

My fingers dig into his hips, grabbing his left hip bone, and I use my other hand to jack him off.

Levi is a vocal lover. Loud and uninhibited. Unintelligible syllables falling from his mouth, urging me on.

"More, Hayden," Levi pants into my neck. "Fuck me harder, please."

We kiss while we fuck, just barely keeping the kiss contained. He rotates his hips, causing my dick to sink deeper into him. Then, cupping my face between his palms, he whispers, "What am I to you, Hayden?"

Not an ounce of hesitation from me. "You are mine," I whisper back.

He groans when I fist his cock. "For how long?"

I pull him closer to me, wrapping my arms around his back. "For as long as you'll let me have you," I tell him.

He nods and I kiss him again, hard and deep. "Forever, then?" he whispers into our kiss. When I tell him, "Yes," the sureness inside me is stunning. Maybe we're moving too fast, but right now, I don't care. And maybe these words mean nothing in the long run, but in this moment, they are true, and they mean everything.

I drive up into him over and over again. He takes each thrust with confidence. "Harder," he whispers against my shoulder. I fuck up into him one last time – hard, but still not nearly hard enough. He comes, loud and without warning, and I let go inside him. His cum covers his tattoos. I work it into his skin, leaning forward to drag my tongue over his cum-covered nipples.

And all I can think about while Levi works through the last shudders of his orgasm is how much better it could've been if I had given it to him the way I know he wanted it. The way I wanted it.

But maybe the chemicals in his brain won't leave him alone if we open that door, and I can't let Levi suffer like that too.