Second Hand: A Tucker Springs Novel 2

sound of my phone announcing a text. It was from El.
Hope you’re feeling okay this morning. Sorry I didn’t stick around but wasn’t sure if you’d want me there or not. I hope you don’t think I took advantage of you while you were drunk. Even though I did. Call if you want.
Another text followed. MoJo says hi and that she didn’t take advantage of you at all, so don’t take your disgust at me out on her.
I smiled again, though I bit the inside of my cheek at the same time, trying to quell the upset in my stomach that had nothing to do with too much rum. I felt like I should text back, but I didn’t know what to say. Telling myself I’d think of something later, I put the phone down and went to the kitchen to see what food I might be able to keep down.
Except as I searched through my cupboards, full of food instead of useless appliances, I remembered last night. Remembered the way El had smiled at me. The way he’d danced with me. I remembered his touch and the taste of his kiss and the wonderful feeling of being in his arms. I remembered the way he’d touched me and told me I was beautiful inside and out. I remembered feeling amazing. Cherished. Loved.
That feeling was tempered more than a little by the acknowledgment of what exactly I had done and with whom. Specifically, that the whom had been a man.
After my shower, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring into my own eyes. The chipmunk part of my brain was back on its wheel, chattering away about how it didn’t matter, how I had been drunk, how it was just messing around. Except that other voice wasn’t whispering in the back of my head now. It really wasn’t saying anything, but it wasn’t muted. It pushed the chipmunk further and further back, calling up memories older than the ones from the night before. Of kissing the neighbor boy, Dean. Of feeling my heart race when he’d breathed against my neck. Of catching sight of boys in the locker room and being turned on—and terrified.
Of being caught by Dean’s mom with his hand on my cock, of her screaming, of me begging her not to tell my mom. Of never seeing Dean again after that.
Of being tempted by guys at college but being rescued by Stacey and her willingness to direct my life. Of how the longer I was with Stacey, the less I thought about guys at all until I couldn’t even remember having ever liked them.
I stared at myself and had a strange sort of epiphany, or at least something that felt like one, a kind of companion to that unsettled sensation I’d had at El’s text, and just like then, I couldn’t put it into words. Because it wasn’t about words. It was about feelings. It was about wanting. About aching.
About needing.
The sensation carried me out of the house and into my car, which seemed to know it was supposed to go to Tucker Pawn, because that’s where I ended up. The shop was closed, but the feelings carried me around the side to a door which could only go up to his apartment.
It wasn’t until I heard MoJo barking excitedly and El cooing to her as he came down the stairs that I remembered I’d meant to call him, not show up unannounced on a Sunday afternoon. So when he opened the door, I was frozen in fear and mortification and the same emptiness I remembered through a rum haze when he’d told me he needed to take me home.
“Paul.” That was all he said, and he seemed surprised, but not exactly excited to see me. Wary, definitely.
I still couldn’t speak. I wanted him to smile, to tease me, because he always did. He wasn’t now, though. He just looked at me, guarded, unreadable. Unhelpful.
I think I’d arrived believing it would be some kind of movie moment where he’d sweep me into his arms and we’d kissed and everything would work out. The weird part was, I could feel that possibility lurking underneath us, except neither of us were willing to make that leap. Or maybe I was the only one wishing for cheesy violins. Maybe he was hoping I would buy a clue and go away.
He’d wanted me last night, though. That much I remembered. He’d wanted me this morning. But standing here now, looking at him with all his wariness, it was so easy to believe he’d come to his senses. Or that I’d already managed to screw everything up before I even had myself figured out.
It didn’t help that I still didn’t know what to say, what I felt, what I wanted. So with nothing else to offer, I said, “We need to talk.”
His expression the same, he nodded. “Probably