Punk Love

“I am going.” He nuzzled his nose in my neck, kissing a path to my collarbone. I pushed him away.

“If you’re going, I’m just going to assume you are cheating on me, and then we’ll have to break up.”

He perked up, sitting straight in his bed now.

“Okay. That’s a leap. How did you get to that?”

I already hated his mysterious Swedish cousin without even knowing him. In my eyes, he was stealing him from me after Alex graduated high school. I was even contemplating not inviting the bastard to our imaginary wedding. He was definitely not going to be the godfather to our imaginary kid.

“Come on, Alex, I’m not dumb. What do you think you’re going to do when you get there?”

“Drink. Watch shows. See friends. Drink again.” He ticked off each item on the list by counting his fingers. “Buy you lots of presents because I’ll miss your ass,” he added, diving in for another kiss. I pushed him away, again.

“You’re going to have sex with other girls.”

“No, I’m not.” He frowned, looking genuinely baffled.

“Of course you will!” I shrieked desperately, throwing my arms in the air. “You will, even if you don’t mean to. One night you’re just going to be super drunk after a show. Like really, really plastered, and your cousin will be hooking up with someone, because he doesn’t have a girlfriend, and that someone will have a friend, and she’ll come on to you, and she’ll seduce you, and you’ll go for it, just like you did with Ainsley before our first date. Then you’ll wake up the next morning and feel shame and disgust but figure, hey, what your girlfriend doesn’t know can’t hurt her, and then move on with your life. But guess what? The random girl you hooked up with will be pregnant and will hunt you down for child support, so joke’s on you.”

He stared at me like I just grew a tail and some horns.

“Okay, first of all—that was oddly specific.” He raised an eyebrow. “And second, hello. Nice to meet you. I’m Alex. I’m Russian. I can handle my drink like nobody’s business and I’ve been getting smashed religiously—the only religious thing I do, mind you—way before I met you. Never hooked up with another girl without meaning to. Ever. Don’t intend to, either. And as for Ainsley.” He took a deep breath. “She didn’t seduce me. I’m not some gently bred, innocent lady from a historical romance novel. I just knew you and I were going all the way to Relationshipville and figured I wasn’t going to get some for a long while, because you are worth the wait. That was my last hurrah. I love you. And maybe I didn’t love you back then, but I sure as shit knew I was in danger of falling.”

Then why do you want to spend three weeks away from me?

But ultimately, this is what it came down to: I couldn’t tell Alex what to do. I had no agency to make decisions for him. And besides, this year had been challenging enough with everything Ryan had put us through and Alex stood by me, not once asking me if any of the rumors were true or second-guessing me. He showed me nothing but loyalty and trust, so I had no reason to doubt him. Any insecurities I had were my own, and mine to deal with.

I closed my eyes, shaking my head. “God. I’m literally going to let you do this.”

He laughed. “I’m not asking for permission, Honeypie.”

“Fine. But you better make it up to me.”

“I promise to keep my hands—and other organs—to myself the entire trip. We’ll spend the other five weeks of summer break attached by the hip, and when it’s your birthday, I’m going to make it special for you.”

This time, I did let him kiss me. Hard. He engulfed me with his body, pressing against me. I bucked my hips forward, groaning into our kiss. He hissed, catching my lower lip between his teeth.

“I love you, Honeypie.”

“I love you, asshole.”

Summer break started, and my parents were thrilled Alex was backpacking through Europe with his cousin. Not because they were excited for the STD they were sure he was going to gift me when he came back to my arms after his trip, but because they’d been trying to hammer it into my head that I needed to spend more time with people who weren’t Alex.

The night before Alex was hopping on a flight, he came to see me. We made out in his car on a cliff overlooking the sea. It was a really deserted spot (I would go back to this spot a lot after we broke up, just to torture myself). He flattened the backseat and took off my top and my bra. It felt really good. The whole attention to my breasts part. Not that there was a lot of said breasts to work with, but he seemed very happy with what Mother Nature blessed me with. Kissing and nibbling, swirling his tongue. All the good stuff.