Before You Leave

06. The Dirty Book

          After school when I walked back to the apartment, Gideon was already there in the couch.

"We talked," he says, looking at his hands.

I close the door behind me. "How did it go?" I ask with a wince.

He adjusts the ring on the middle of his finger. "She broke up with me," he says quietly.

I dropped on my knees in front of him.

"She was a really great friend to me," he whispers, twisting that same ring. "And I feel like crap. She knows I didn't cheat on her, but after everything coming out in the open..."

He sighs heavily. I see tears roll down his cheeks. I lean up on my knees, putting my fingers through the hole he's making with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, and head leaning onto it. And I wipe both of his tears away. He blinks, looking up at me. His eyes are bloodshot from crying.

He jerks away from my hands, and they fall uselessly to my lap. "What, you aren't going to make fun of me?" He asks, voice cracking. "Real men don't cry, right?"

I narrow my eyes. "Real men show their emotions," I tell him. "Real men feel vulnerable enough to cry in front of women. Real men like you, Gideon Andrews," I say, jabbing a finger at his chest. "If she breaks up with you, that is her problem. If she doesn't want to be friends afterwards, that's her issue, too and you need to give her space."

His hands go to his knees. "You act like you actually like me. Like you're a friend."

That makes me blink. That F word made me tremble with fear.

I stood up suddenly, turning sway from him and going to my room quickly.

Attachments... I didn't like them. I loosely called Ray, Ian, and Cam my friends. Cam was the only solid one. The others were too reckless and dickheaded for me to even comprehend. I loved Cameron,  it the other two it was hard to feel that for him. They were just too much of stupid asses for that.

••••••
"Okay, time to find a sport," he says. It's been two days since our last conversation, and he's just now barged into my room, laptop in hand.

I quickly threw my book entitled Serpent and Dove, into the closet.

I groaned. "No."

"You're good at climbing," he says. "I've seen it."

"Once," I remind him. "And only once. I don't do physical activity."

"Right, because you're a book nerd," he says, pointing to the closet.

I roll my eyes. "I am not."

"You are too. Just admit it, you like books."

"I don't!"

"Oh really?" He tosses his laptop onto the bed, it bouncing before relaxing. He stalked over to the closet where I threw the book, snatching it off the wooden floor.

I jumped to my feet, grabbing for it, but he held it up and above his head, opening to a random page.

"'Touch me, Reid.' To my surprise, the words came out steady despite my breathlessness. 'Please. Touch me.'," he said, eyes widening as he read that scene from the book. I winced as he said, "What the hell is this?!"

I covered my mouth with one hand, still reaching for the book with the other.

He flipped a few pages. "'This is how you touch a woman.' I pressed into him harder for emphasis, grabbing his hand and bringing it between my legs. 'This is how you touch me.'," Gideon sputtered, throwing the book back in the closet.