Chapter Twenty-two: Hurts 2B Human

Georgie

HURTS 2B HUMAN

Performed by P!nk there were quotes by other famous people. Some about leadership, some about government, some about community and country. His hand was running along my bare skin as he watched me read his notes. It was intoxicating, like everything about him.

"Wow," I breathed out.

"You use that word a lot," he said, hand still journeying over my skin.

"Wow?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Why do you have this?" I asked.

"When we first met Ava, all those years ago, in Rockport, she dropped quotes all the time. Some of them were said just to make us laugh, some to make a point, but I realized some of them were really good. Things that I'd want to be known for saying some day."

"So, you bought a journal and started writing?"

He chuckled. "You make me sound like a teenage girl, but yeah, I guess. At first, I was just writing them in this old-school notebook—a stupid, spiral-bound thing that kept coming apart. Dani bought me this as a birthday present, and I wrote down my favorites."

"It's pretty impressive."

Mac eased his body over mine, taking the notebook and throwing it to the side of the bed, his length and hardness making itself known. "I agree. Very impressive."

And he was devouring me again for what felt like the millionth time that weekend, and I let him because it felt incredible to be devoured by Mac.

? ? ?

My alarm went off, and I groaned at the same time a male voice groaned next to me. It took all of two seconds for me to remember where I was. In Mac's room. In his bed. Where we'd spent all of Sunday learning more about each other than just the physical. Learning things that made him embed himself inside me in other ways.

I kissed the side of his cheek, rough with the scruff that had grown over his face in the course of the two days since he'd shaved. It was enticing, like every single thing about him .

"Clothes please," I said.

"Reality bites." His voice was as gruff as the beard on his chin.

I laughed, but I pulled myself from him, picked up his T-shirt from where it had fallen on one of his multiple trips to the kitchen the day before, and the rustle of clothes made him open his eyes and look at me.

"Clothes bite, too," he growled.

"I don't think you want me arrested for indecent exposure by walking to school naked."

He moved fast, coming from the bed and wrapping an arm around me, pulling my chin up so that our eyes met. "I don't want anyone seeing this body but me."

"There you go, being all bossy again."

I kissed his rough cheek and pulled away, but he caught my hand, pulling me back to his chest and his arms. "I sort of mean it, though. I don't want to share you. We're a thing now, right? You. Me. No one else."

I got what he was saying. Monogamous. Relationship. It was going to hurt when it ended.

"Yes. I agree. You. Me. No one else," I said. "So, that means you'll have to call off all the ladies on the Hill who are drooling after you and wanting to be Mrs. Next Senator from Delaware."

I'd brought up the politics this time. I hadn't meant to, but, in truth, it was part of him. Who he was. The notebook from last night showed that more than anything else.

"There are no droolers," he said with a smirk.

"Puhlease. You can't walk into a room without drool being left behind. "

"Are you saying I'm sexy, Georgie-Girl?"

I flicked his chest like I'd seen Dani do. A familiar move. "Don't let it go to your head, Mac-Macauley."

"Too late."

I kissed him. A gentle kiss. A kiss that was not goodbye but maybe goodnight, even though it was morning. "I gotta go shower."

"We can shower in here," he said, arms still around me.

"No. That will take way too much time."

His smile was still there. "I'm just as good at the quickies as I am at the all-day thing."

"I'm not sure my body can handle any more. Quickie or not."

That wiped the smile from his face. "Did I hurt you?"

My turn to laugh. "No. I'm just sore. Let's just say that I haven't done that kind of marathon in a long time."

"A long time?" His voice lowered, and I could hear the jealousy as well as the tease in it.

"Okay, ever."

His smile returned. "Good."

I pushed out of his arms. "I'll see you tonight."

"I'll be out of the shower before you will. I'll have coffee ready."

"I usually grab a latte on the way to class."

"Fine. I'll still be out to kiss you goodbye."

My turn to smile as happiness filled me again. When was the last time someone waited to say goodbye to me? To kiss me goodbye? Not since Grandma, probably.

I left to shower, my body sore in ways I couldn't ever remember except maybe the first time I'd ever had sex in my life. It had been with my lab partner in high school, in his room, hurrying before his parents came home, the forbiddenness of it more enthralling than the act itself.

Maybe that was what was calling to me with Mac. It should have been forbidden. He should have been off limits to me. Yet he was mesmerizing. Everything about him…including his family.

When I came out, he was showered, shaved, and in his suit, looking strikingly handsome and just like the man he wanted to be. A young politician. A dynamo in the making.

He smiled when he saw me, and my heart jumped back into my throat.

I grabbed my bag, shouldering it, and then met him at the door, the clean scent of his soap and shaving cream barely masking the heady, salty sea smell of him that had permeated the room all weekend.

"I'm going to miss you," he said.

I chuckled. "I'll be back tonight. You're kind of stuck with me, seeing as I live here. No escape for the weary."

"Thank God." He kissed my lips—a kiss that spoke of us being apart for days instead of hours.

I pulled away and left before I couldn't help but throw my book bag on the ground and stay.

? ? ?

I was walking out of my first class, heading to my second, when my phone vibrated.

THE GUY: Dinner tonight? Anywhere you want to go.

ME: Better be careful, I might ask to be flown to Paris for dinner.

THE GUY: I may not be able to swing that tonight, but I damn well would try if that's really what you wanted.

ME: **laughing emoji**

THE GUY: Really. Where do you want to go?

ME: Honestly, I don't care. Take me somewhere you like.

THE GUY: Better be careful, I might take you to a bug bar.

ME: Bug bar?

THE GUY: Where they serve bugs.

ME: You don't seem like a bug-eating kind of guy. I'm not sure I have anything to worry about.

THE GUY: You're right. The thought of eating an ant kind of makes me want to **puke emoji**

ME: Phew. Saved by the ant.

THE GUY: Will you be home by six?

ME: Yes. Will you?

THE GUY: Lions couldn't keep me away.

I was in my next class when my phone buzzed once more. I was just going to harass him about not working when he should be, but it was Raisa.

RAISA: God. I will be so glad to be away from here.

ME: What's up?

RAISA: Malik and Dad have been fighting even more. Mom has been trying to intervene. It is obnoxious. Stanford, here I come.

ME: I can't wait to see you.

RAISA: Malik the Moody will be with me, but I will get to lose him after he drops me in Palo Alto.

ME: You'll miss him as soon as he flies home.

RAISA: Not for at least a month.

ME: **laughing emoji**

I smiled happily at the thought of seeing my siblings this weekend. Then, my smile disappeared as I thought of having to introduce them to Mac. If it had just been Raisa, it would have been easier. But trying to introduce him to both my siblings, especially if Malik was in one of his petulant moods, was not going to be easy. I wished they were as effortlessly acceptable as Mac's family had been—humor, a Kennedy-like grace, and charm ebbing through them.

My family had darkness and beauty with a side of humor thrown in. But they were mine. And for however long this lasted with Mac and me, they would be a part of his life, too.

It made me nervous, but I tried to put all thoughts of his family and my family aside so I could concentrate on the board in front of me.