Stupid Love (Stumbling into Love 1)

“I should go home. I need a shower. Someone got their jizz all over me.” He winked.

“Hey, your spunk is all over me too.”

He climbed off my lap, and I missed the weight of him there. I stood, got us a towel to wipe ourselves clean, and then he buttoned and zipped his pants, followed by putting his shirt back on.

“Thanks again for tonight,” Elijah said. “The dancing, not the orgasm. I mean, thanks for that, but it wasn’t what I was thanking you for, and I’m going to shut up now.”

I stood there like an idiot and nodded.

He gave me a small smile, then walked out the door.

I’m fucked. I’m so fucking fucked.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Elijah

Every day that passed, I thought would be the one Shaw and I decided to stop doing whatever it was we were doing. One day turned into two, three, then a week, then two weeks, then three, and we were still doing it. We didn’t discuss what it meant or what we wanted. We just…spent time together. We continued our dance lessons, planned for the gala, grabbed dinner, watched TV or went to see movies, and returned to Piedmont Park, where he’d annoyingly taken a million photos of me. He would tease me and make fake sex noises when Brooklyn called because he was apparently sixteen.

We talked on the phone and texted. We jerked each other off and sucked each other off, and he kissed my forehead and temple, the top of my head, and once, the tip of my nose. It felt a whole lot like dating, like being boyfriends, but I never said that. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want to scare him away.

I wanted to be Shaw’s boyfriend.

More than I’d ever wanted to be anyone’s boyfriend, if I was being honest.

I hated the fact that I didn’t say it, that I didn’t tell him, because again, it was what I wanted. Even Shaw had said there was nothing wrong with desiring more, with knowing what I needed, yet we were both doing a pretty good fucking job pretending we weren’t doing what we were. And that Shaw and I desired different things.

It wasn’t that I wanted to marry the guy, but…yeah, I really fucking wanted to be his boyfriend. There was no getting around it. Sue me.

I’d started my ballet classes again, and I was in love. My feet hurt like hell, but the rest of it was fantastic. I felt alive again, when I hadn’t realized I’d been missing something, like I was allowing myself to be in love when I’d denied myself for years. And I had Shaw to thank for it.

That also made me push him more while trying to figure out what he was passionate about, what he liked, but every time I did, we didn’t get anywhere. He would change the subject or blow me off or, well, blow me in general. It was hard to complain when someone put your dick in their mouth.

I made it a point to check his Charades & Sexcapades site to see if he had any more articles like the one he’d written on finding your passion. I wondered how much of who Shaw was inside, or things he questioned, came out in his writing, but there hadn’t been much. He’d answered a few questions, thankfully mostly about sex and not relationships because that would likely freak me out. For all I knew, maybe he’d done that on purpose, because if I saw him talking about not believing in love for himself, I’d likely have to bring it up, and then everything would change.

It was a Tuesday night, and Danny would be coming over for dinner. That morning I’d had an emergency ice-cream breakfast with Brooklyn to freak out on her about how nervous I was because I’d invited Shaw tonight too. Even though Shaw and I weren’t serious, I hoped we would stay friends when this was over. I really wanted him and Danny to get to know each other, not that it should matter. It wasn’t like Danny didn’t have friends I wasn’t close with, but it was different with Shaw. My cocky neighbor was…special. I filed that under: Things I don’t want to think about.

Shaw had asked if he could bring Will, I figured because he might feel outnumbered with Danny and me there, but that wouldn’t be the case. As much as I loved Danny, the whole point of this night was to get him to like Shaw, to trust him and see that there was more to Shaw than he’d given him credit for.

Which now meant I was running around like crazy, trying to plan dinner for four people. Our meal was supposed to be at seven, and I told them all to come at six thirty. I wasn’t surprised when there was a knock on my door at five thirty.