Gorgeous Misery (Creeping Beautiful)

But I’m not most guys. And my danger level is a few notches higher than hers. So all this wriggling gets her is the full weight of my much bigger body resting on top of her chest.

She sighs. Not in frustration, but in annoyance. “I can get out of this, ya know.”

“So get out of this,” I challenge back.

She huffs again. “Why do you always have to turn it into a confrontation? Why can’t you just ask for sex, like a normal guy?”

“Normal guy? What do you know about having sex with normal men?” I mean for it to come out easy, like a joke, but it’s got an edge.

“Mmm. What’s that I hear? Jealousy?”

I pause to think about my answer. Am I jealous? Oh, hell yes, I am. But there’s no good reason for it. She’s not sleeping with anyone else but me. She’s never slept with anyone else but me. “Sure,” I say. “I’m jealous. But you’re mine, Wendy. You know you’re mine.”

She sighs. Closes her eyes. Relaxes her body. Gives in. “Fine. Let’s fuck.”

My laugh is a guffaw this time and I roll off of her, settling at her side. She leans her body into mine and then we’re wrapped up together. We fit in all the right ways, my arm around her, her cheek on my chest, my thigh between her legs.

I love this girl.

And this submissive thing she does? This giving-in thing? That shit just makes me sigh and close my eyes.

“Fuck you.” Wendy laughs. “You’re not going back to sleep. You woke me up, let’s do this.”

I don’t answer her right away because I’m suddenly thinking about… things. All the things. All the fights we’ve been in—not between us, but real fights with other people. All the times I’ve saved her, all the times she’s saved me, all the sex, all the kisses, all the love. And all the mornings after when we had to go our separate ways.

“Do you have any idea what I would do for you, Wendy?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Her body goes still. It takes her about ten seconds to find the right words. And they are simple ones. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Wen.” I play with her hair because I love her hair. “I don’t need anything in return for this. But I would literally blow up the entire fucking planet to save you.”

“That’s diabolical.”

“Yep.” I nod in agreement. “And I don’t care. I’ve lost—” I pause here to reconsider my words. “We have lost so much, ya know?” I shake my head. “Never again. I will never let them get you.”

She props herself up on her elbow and smiles down at me. It’s a real fucking Wendy Gale smile. Not the kind that says, I’m gonna kill you now. And not the kind that says, You just underestimated me, motherfucker. And that will be the last mistake you ever get to make, either.

No. It’s a genuine I-love-you-back smile.

And that means it’s a sad smile too. This part of her has always broken my heart. Because to Wendy, happiness and sadness are the same thing. Because she cannot be happy or appreciate anything she has without first thinking about what she had to do to get it.

She sighs. “You’re the one hunting me, Nick. Don’t you think that’s kind of ironic?”

“What the hell? That came out of nowhere.”

“Come on. Are you, or are you not, making plans with Nathan St. James to kill the Zero girls?”

“Those aren’t Zeroes. They’re Zero two-point-oh. They need to go.”

“You say this like”—she pauses, lets out a breath—“like they’re different than me.”

“They are.”

“They’re not, Nick.”

“So what? They’re dangerous.”

“I’m dangerous. You’re dangerous.”

“Why are we even talking about this now? I thought we were having morning goodbye sex?”

“Yeah, well, you took too long. Got all sentimental and shit. You should’ve just got on with it and then we wouldn’t be having this argument right now. We’d be moaning with ecstasy.”

I reach for her, but she pushes my hand off. And it’s a serious push. Not playing. “Come on.”

“No. I’ve put this conversation off for too long. Why am I different? And if you don’t have an answer for me, then that’s a problem, Nick.”

“Wendy—”

“Don’t.” She puts up a hand. “Do you have plans to kill Sasha?”

“What? What the fuck? What kind of question is that?”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“Thought? Thought what?”

“She’s a Zero too.” Wendy throws the cool white sheet off our bodies and gets out of bed.

“Where the fuck are you going? We’re having sex here.”

“No,” she says, pulling on her jeans. “We’re not.”

I get out of bed too, pull a pair of sweats up my legs. Because she’s about to escape and even though I knew she was going to leave me today, I’m not ready for it. Especially if we’re fighting. “What did I do? What’s your fucking problem?”