Perfectly Toxic (Sterling Shore 9)

My lips twist in a wry grin, and he shakes his head while sitting back, looking flustered.

“You’ve had a lot of relationships, right?” he asks me randomly while pulling my feet in his lap.

I roll over onto my back, glancing at my soup. It still looks too hot to eat, considering the amount of steam rising from it.

“Thanks for reminding me how terrible I am at this,” I say, looking back at Ethan, who groans while scrubbing his face with his hands.

“I meant you know how to have a relationship. Bella, I haven’t done anything like this since high school, and it didn’t end too well back then.”

I sit up so quickly that it feels like the Hulk just punched through the front of my skull. When I curse and clutch my head, Ethan is suddenly beside me, gently lowering me back down.

“I’ll put the soup up. Just go to sleep, Bella. You can’t get better without rest, food, and lots of fluids. Allie’s orders.”

I scowl at him. “You expect me to believe you haven’t had sex with anyone since high school?”

His eyebrows go up. “I didn’t say I haven’t fucked anyone. I said I haven’t done anything like this. Hell, I haven’t had time.”

“So the last girl you dated was Star?”

He stiffens, but he nods.

“And she and Maverick…” Things slowly click into place. “Which is why you and Maverick don’t spend long hours on the phone.”

“Star and I were pretty serious, and she was slipping off with Maverick. I had no idea, and he had no clue she and I were a thing. I’m usually pretty private about my shit. He didn’t care enough about her to fight over her, but we came to blows because I lost my cool.”

“She was that important? Are… Um… Did you get over her?”

He grunts. “I got over her the second I found out she was having sex with Mav. I don’t like being played. But there’s something you should know.”

“Which is?” I ask, trying and failing to sit up again.

“Star was the first person to touch me that I ever felt without being surprised.”

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, and I blame it on the virus.

“Huh?”

He looks so vulnerable right now as he brushes a piece of hair away from my face.

“When I was twelve, I lost all feeling in my body.”

I’m so confused.

“How?”

“The docs said I mentally blocked it out. Your brain is what actually delivers the message to the rest of your body to feel. The sensory nerves deliver the message to the brain when part of your body is in distress or anything else. But it’s your brain’s responsibility to send that message out to your body to actually feel it. When you block it out, it’s harder to get that message through with clarity.”

I’m positively, one hundred percent dumbfounded.

“But why?”

“The why has nothing to do with this conversation. The point is, I lost all feeling young in life. The only thing I could feel was severe pain, which resulted in a lot of stupid decisions. At least, until Star.”

Yeah, it’s like a punch to the gut. “She was special.”

He nods slowly. “I thought so. I felt her touch me. Usually, I could only feel something as simple as a touch when someone surprised me. But with her, I could feel a touch that didn’t have to be laced with pain. And, well, you can figure out the rest. After her, I learned I could feel sex, even though it took a while to get going. My guard slowly lowers during that, and I can feel everything during that time. I sort of made a lot of bad decisions with that too. But since it was the easiest way to feel, I took what I could get.”

I’m not so sure I want to hear anymore.