Chapter 6

Tiffany

Apair of arms wraps around me and I sniffle into my pillow, trying to silence my cries. The arms only hold me closer as the warm body beside me cradles me like the little spoon I am.

"I don't know how to do this," I whisper, knowing it's been the same mantra I've been whispering for forty-eight days.

"You do this by leaning on the ones around you who love you. You do this by not doing it alone." Steve's voice is soothing as he strokes my arm.

"I should have been on that bus," I say for probably the thousandth time since the accident. Steve had already left for the tournament by the time my sorority, Epsilon Lambda Delta, was departing for the trip. Knowing that we were planning to spend the weekend partying, I went to Steve's apartment to get some studying in before leaving.

I don't know what happened, only that I must have fallen asleep there because I woke up to an increasingly alarming number of calls and text messages, first from Zara voicing her annoyance while wondering where I was, and then from Steve wanting to know if I was okay.

I want to go back to that morning and stop everyone from getting on that bus because that was the day that my best friend died. I keep waiting for each morning to get easier, but it never seems to.

"Maybe it makes me an asshole, but I'm glad you weren't," Steve says. "I'm not sure I would have been able to get out of bed if I lost you."

My guilt over missing the bus and his relief that I wasn't on it is something we've fought over the last few months. I roll over to face Steve and cup his face. "You would have gone on living. I would have wanted you to move on."

He nuzzles his nose against mine. Normally, his go-to response is to tell me that he knows, but today he breaks the cycle. "How is this any different, bumblebee?"

I open my mouth but don't have a good enough response.

"Zara would hate this for you. Knowing her, she would have expected the most dramatic mourning at her memorial, but I bet you more than anything, if she showed up today, she would bitch you out for not living your life."

"She didn't deserve this," I say, rolling away from him onto my back.

Steve just scoots closer with his leg thrown over my hips. "None of them did, but, and maybe this is weird, but I had the strangest dream."

His words nag at something in my mind, maybe the wisps of a dream half-dreamt. "Yeah? Tell me about it." I roll back to him, and he gives me a funny twist of his lips. I've always been a fidget when we sleep, and awake is no exception.

"I dreamt that I did lose you, and…" He lets me go for a moment to rub at his bare chest. "It was fucking awful. It wasn't just hyperbole earlier. I wouldn't have gotten out of bed, because in my dream I barely lived without you. But that's not the point. In my dream, I drove off the cliff and up to this house where you were living, and I guess you were in the Underworld with the King."

The more he talks, the more my dream comes back in fragments. Three pitbulls running around the house. Daphne and Zara butting heads, which is hardly unusual, but it makes me miss Zara all the more. I still haven't been able to go to the site of the wreck even though I know so many of my classmates and friends have. Maybe it's time I suck it up and go.

Feeling the shift in my emotions, I opt for a teasing tone. "So, are you saying I was Mrs. Satan?"

"No, my baby could only ever be an angel." He presses his mouth into the crook of my neck with a teasing raspberry, and my giggle makes my mood lighter. "But I played the guitar and convinced the King to let you go."

"Le gasp!" I tease. "You finally serenade me and it's with an audience and in a dream so I don't even remember it?"

"Yep, you're just going to have to wait for a special occasion."

"I'm convinced you don't actually know how to play the guitar and instead use it to check out your options."

"Bumblebee, there's only ever you."

This time when he kisses me, I let it deepen into something more. I've spent the last forty-eight days pushing him away, because in a sense, I blamed him.

We were going to see his tournament. I know that he wasn't the only one playing in the game, but I was the one who suggested to Zara we make it a whole weekend thing. I was the one who wanted to go see Steve. I was the one who helped make the plans and found the bus company that would take us all there.

Steve is slow as his mouth moves with mine. He shifts up to give himself a better angle as his tongue sweeps into my mouth. For the last two months, I've turned away from him when he's sought anything beyond comforting intimacy, but something about today has changed me. My hand trails down his side until I find his dick straining against his boxers.

When I grip his erection, he pulls back and looks at me, concern in his eyes. "We don't have to if you don't want to," he assures me.

"I know, but I want to. I've missed you," I tell him even though he's been here this whole time.

"I've missed you too."

Steve throws the blanket off us so he can maneuver between my legs. He's so serious as he pushes up my nightshirt that I can't help but smile at him. I appreciate his tender loving toward me, but I'm suddenly ravenous for him as if this is the first time we're touching since I overslept and missed the bus.

It's like he can sense my desperation, because his hand is between us and he's stroking my pussy, teasing me before his mouth breaks away from mine to cover one of my nipples. I've always been sensitive, but every touch of his body to mine feels like it's been turned up to an eleven. I'm grinding against his hand only to whine at the loss of his touch before he presses his fingers into my mouth, letting me lap up the taste of my arousal. He's doing everything right, making sure my body remembers who it belongs to.

It's always been Steve. His hand leaves my mouth to return between my legs only instead of touching me, he's guiding his cock to my entrance. His push inside me is slow, and both of us are moaning as he fits himself into my wet heat. My body stretches to accommodate him, and I moan in pleasure at the feeling of how he fits perfectly with me.

We both hold onto this moment and each other, sharing soft kisses and murmured "I love you's" before I grind my body against his, looking for him to release the tension that he's been building in me.

He finds a steady rhythm, meeting my hips while I rock up to meet him. It's a closeness that I've missed at my own fault. The distance between us ends now. I have to end it. He is my light at the end of the darkness that's been consuming me, and I can't let it consume him too.

Steve's face is tense as he holds off his own orgasm so I can come first. My body is already so close it's just going to take one small touch to get me there. I reach between us to stroke my clit at the same even pace of his thrusting before I'm coming in a soft, quiet way, my moan almost an exhale. My pussy pulses around Steve, pulling him with me into release. His cock pulsing inside me as he cums keeps me rolling my hips against him, desperate to hold on to this connection.

Rather than following our usual post coital ritual that involves a speedy clean up and high fives about how great that was, Steve pulls out of me and holds me close to him. I can feel the dampness of tears hitting the top of my head, but I don't question him about it. Instead, I give him a reassuring squeeze.

"I'm here. I promise I'm not going anywhere," I swear to him.

"Anywhere you went, I would follow."