Hoax in One

| 09 |

I found Tate sitting on the end of the bed in our room. He looked like a statue; staring at his hands resting on his knees.

I'd lost him after we made our way back to the party and Gus pulled me into a game of beer pong. Tate had been watching us kick ass at first, but when we won, I realized he was gone.

"There you are."

Tate looked up at me and gave me a true smile with a little bit of sadness behind it. "Here I am."

"You okay?" I asked, coming closer. I placed my hand on his broad shoulder and gave him a tiny squeeze.

His eyes were heavy with drunkenness and exhaustion. "I'm great." He reached out and pulled my hips into him, slurring his next words. "I'm tired. Will you go to sleep with me? I want you next to me."

I laughed to cover the clenching of my heart. "Somebody can't hold their alcohol anymore."

Tate shook his head and buried his face in my stomach. "Not drinking for a year will do that to you."

I tamped down on my urge to ask him about the past year in his state.

"Lie down and I'll get you a water bottle." Nothing could cover my pulse that was sprinting inside my veins.

He followed my instructions like a wounded puppy with his tail between his legs and nestled his face against a seahorse pillow. I found him in the same place when I came back.

I climbed onto the bed next to him. "Here," I whispered, placing the cold plastic into his fingers.

He crunched it as he took huge gulps before placing it on the nightstand and rolling back toward me. His hand found my thigh, each finger electrified as he pressed them into me.

"You're so beautiful, Devin."

Tate didn't get that wasted often. His short hair was a tiny bit disheveled, a slight perma-smile playing on his lips.

"You're drunk," I laughed. Was it the type of drunk where he was being a little too honest? I found myself hoping it was. I wasn't drunk enough where I'd let my inhibitions go and anything would happen between us, but I wanted him to tell me every little thought he had tucked away inside the corners of his brain.

He picked his hand up and twirled a piece of my hair around his finger. Maybe he had changed his mind about blondes just this once.

"That doesn't make you any less beautiful." He dropped his hand to my neck and ran his thumb over my collarbone.

I lay down next to him and a brighter smile formed slowly across his face, reaching the creases in his eyes.

"Why do you always look at my brown eye?"

"Um," I stammered. "I have no idea. I like it?"

I really had no idea. It was deeper maybe. Obviously darker, but more colors swirled within it. There were etches of green and black. The browns within it changed hues depending on his mood. His blue was pretty and bright but his brown had more depth.

It was how I read him—his emotion showing through in all those spirals and bursts.

"Everyone always looks at my blue eye. Except you."

I shrugged one shoulder. "Your blue one is pretty too. But there's something about it I guess."

Tate wrapped his arm around my back and brought our bodies together. I fit into every little corner of his sculpted body. I curled into him as he curled around me, each of us soothing the other.

I breathed in the smell of his laundry detergent woven into his salmon shirt and snaked my arm around his waist, unable to talk. But maybe he could just feel it. The feeling of being right where you want to be—next to each other.