Placing a finger to his mouth, he shushes me and crawls into bed beside me, slipping under the blankets and getting comfortable. “Go back to sleep, Tripp. It’s late.”
“What time is it?” I ask while sitting up on my knees and reaching to pull his hood down. The sight of his bloodied, swollen face in the moonlight causes me to gasp and reach out to comfort him. My hands cup his face, being careful not to hurt him even more. His right eye is so fat that he can’t even open it. “Oh my God, Alex! Are you okay? Please tell me that you’re okay. Let me take care of you,” I cry out. I can’t help but to cry whenever I see him hurt like this. It kills me so damn much, knowing what his father puts him through, and what he does to him.
Alex is my best friend. He means everything to me. I feel his pain as if it were mine. “I hate him, Alex. I hate him so damn much. Why does he have to do this to you? Why? Please leave there and stay here. I can ask Tara . . .”
“I’m fine, Firecracker. I’m going to be fine.” He gently reaches for my hands and pulls them away from his face, placing a gentle kiss to each one. “This is becoming routine for me. It gives me a reason to sneak out and sleep in your bed. You’re my something for the pain,” he says with a painful laugh. “Now lay down so I can hold you and fall asleep. I’m tired as hell and you have to get up early, babe.”
Knowing that Alex will refuse to talk about his father and what happened tonight, I pry my eyes away from his achingly beautiful face and lay down beside him, shifting to my side. I scoot in as close to him as possible, and then squeeze his arms until my nails are digging into his skin through his hoodie. In this moment I just want to be as close to him as possible. I want him to know that someone does love him. His father may not give a shit anymore, but I sure as hell do.
I hate this so much. It’s becoming more and more frequent for his father to hurt him. I’m starting to worry that if no one stops him he may end up killing him, and there’s no way that I can live without Alex. He thinks that I keep the pain away, but he’s wrong . . . he’s always been my something for the pain, not the other way around.
I can hear him struggling to breathe as he rests his head above mine and pulls me in closer. It’s ripping me apart from the inside out. Every single part of me hurts for him, as well as the thought of ever losing him.
Please don’t take him from me . . .
HOLDING TRIPP AS TIGHTLY AS I can, I try to get comfortable without hurting myself too much. I hate letting Tripp see me hurting, but I can’t stop myself from coming here to be with her after every fight. Being with her just numbs the pain and makes me believe that things will get better.
With my mother close to dying and my brother always out on the streets fighting, Tripp is the closest comfort that I have. My father has become a crazed lunatic that I can’t even look in the face anymore. He’s dead to me now; a total piece of shit that isn’t strong enough to take care of his family. He’s not a real man. A real man fights to his death to keep his family together, but he’s doing everything he can to rip us apart. I’m only sticking around for my mother and Memphis. If it weren’t for them I’d be long gone by now. Well, maybe . . .
I look down at Tripp in my arms and then I realize that isn’t true. I’m stuck here. She will always keep me here. She’ll always be my reason to come back. She’s so fucking precious to me.
I close my eyes and sigh, before running my thumb under Tripp’s eye to wipe away the tears. She’s close to falling asleep now. I can tell by her breathing. I feel bad for waking her up in the first place, but I wasn’t strong enough to be alone tonight. She’s always my strength when I have none.
I’ll spend the next two hours holding her and pretending that life is okay, and then I’ll slip out of her window and sneak back into my bedroom, where everything is far from okay.
Until then . . .
“Love you, babe,” I whisper once I know that she’s asleep; when I know that she can’t hear me.
This may be the only time I say it. If it slips again, I’ll know for sure that she means more to me than just a friend, and everything will have to change.
I’m not sure I can handle that . . .
I AWAKE IN THE MIDDLE of the night, tangled up in the warmth of Tripp’s body. The silkiness of her smooth skin against mine has me fighting with everything in me not to do something that I might regret. I didn’t come in here looking to do anything but hold her and fall asleep. We’ve slept in the same bed plenty of times before, but never with such a small amount of clothing. Her bare ass is fucking torture up against my stiff dick, and every time she moves a little . . . it gets harder. She’s always gotten me hard, but this is on an entirely different level. There’s definitely no hiding this one from her.
Swallowing, I lean down and press my lips against the side of Tripp’s neck while brushing her long hair away from her shoulder. I hear a small moan escape her lips as she whispers my name, her voice barely coming out.
That small breath of air is what does me in. I’m fucking fooling myself if I think I can control myself from acting on the urge to make love to her right now. She’s all that I’ve been able to think about since I got a taste the other night, and I’m a total mess over her right now. Maybe I always have been . . .
Snaking one arm around her belly, I wrap the other one around her neck and rock my hips, grinding my erection against her perky ass. Fuck the consequences. Damn, it feels so good to not hold back for once.
She moans again, but louder this time, and then stretches her neck as I pull it back and run my tongue up the length of it.
“Alex. . . . Touch me. Please.” She breathes loudly. “I can’t take you rubbing your dick against me like that and not feeling you. I can’t fight it anymore. I need you inside of me.”
“Fuck, babe,” I whisper in her ear, totally fucking losing it. “When you put it that way . . . I have no choice but to bury myself deep inside your pussy and take care of you. Fuck! You know I’ll always give you what you need. Even me,” I add, in the heat of the moment. I don’t really know what I meant by that last part, but at the moment I don’t have time to figure it out. I just need to be inside her right now.
“We really shouldn’t do this . . .” I say, in between each kiss down her arm, pulling the strap of her silky tank down lower with each kiss. “Just one more time,” I whisper. “Just for tonight, Tripp. Just two friends having fun.”