A Very Badd Christmas (The Badd Brothers #19)

17. Emerson

CHAPTER 17

emerson

O h my god, the chaos.

By noon, the entire Badd Clan was at our house. Kids from grade school up to high school seniors rampaged and gallivanted about the house, sledded down the refreshed sled run, threw snowballs, drank hot chocolate by the gallon, shared new toys and exclaimed over new gadgets and huddled together watching YouTube and TikTok and whatever else. Adults milled and drank and ate, teased, laughed, chased squealing children, yelled at teenagers, retrieved wayward bottles of booze that had mysteriously ended up near those teenagers…

It was glorious mayhem.

I got pulled in a dozen different directions by a dozen different cousins. Jax wanted a beer pong rematch, Liam, Lena, Lennox, and Lucas—varsity soccer players at their high school—wanted me to give them juggling pointers, Delia wanted to abscond with a bottle of tequila and talk about sex and Hayden and sex with Hayden even though she's definitely not jealous…

What I didn’t get was five minutes alone with Hayden. His time was monopolized even more than mine—everyone wanted to impress him, hang out with him, include him in whatever shenanigans were in the offing. We saw each other in passing a few times, but most of the day we barely saw each other.

By evening, Kaye was thoroughly drunk and being tended to by a watchful Mama Livvie. She was a hysterical drunk, it turned out.

By midnight, Kaye had long since been helped to bed, the youngest kids were piled on the floor of the TV room with blankets and throw pillows while The Grinch played quietly on the TV, most of the adults were in varying stages of inebriation, and I was absolutely shitfaced and unsuccessfully looking for Hayden.

The shitfacedness wasn’t helping. I kept getting assaulted by walls, and gravity kept playing silly buggers with my balance.

I heard his voice coming from the basement, so I headed that way. Only, when I reached the top of the stairs, I couldn't figure out which set of stairs I was supposed to go down. I didn't remember Bast and Dru—Dad and Mom, rather—having four sets of basement stairs, but the evidence in front of me suggested otherwise.

Unable to decide which set of stairs was real, I found myself forced into a role I generally loathed: damsel in distress.

"HAYDEN!" I yelled, weaving on my feet well away from the stairs themselves, fearful of the unpredictable gravity monster trying to hurl me down the stairs and thus put an end to my soccer career, if not my life.

"HAYDEN!"

"Yo, Hayden, I think Em's yelling for you,” I heard Dane say.

A moment later, I saw a rotating cake display of Haydens peering up at me from the bottom of the stairs.

"Em?"

I waved. "Hello."

He grinned. “Hi, babe. You good?"

I shook my head, which ended up with my head wobbling on my neck and pulling me off balance. "I wanna go down there."

He trotted up the steps, magically deciphering the mystery of which set to use. "I take it you need help?"

"Yup. 'M a little nee-nib-ree-aded. Shit. Nee…in…bree…ated." I tried to slap myself in the forehead and missed, almost falling over in the process. "Oops."

Hayden chuckled. "I have a better idea than going downstairs."

I stuck my tongue out and blew a raspberry, or tried to—I only succeeded in drooling on myself. "You're down there. I wanna go down there where you are."

He laughed even harder. "Well, I was down there, but now I'm up here."

I peered at the stairs. "You are?" And then at him. "Oh. Hi. You're cute. I think I'll keep you."

He brushed his thumb over my lips and chin. "And you, my love, are extraordinarily intoxicated."

"Yup! Once a year. Christmas day. Thasssit." I blinked at the four of him. "Are you extraordinallilly Intox…Ixton… whatever you said?"

"No, I'm good."

"Why not?"

A shrug. "I don't like being drunk."

I felt a hot bowling ball form in my throat. "Not sure I do either, anymore.” I swallowed hard. "It snuck up on me." A horrible thought occurred to me. "Are you mad that I'm drunk?"

He scooped me up in his arms, and my head lolled heavily against his chest. "Not even slightly. You're allowed to cut loose once in a while."

"I gotta take care of myself. At school. My grades, soccer…gotta do good. If I lose my scholarship, I might end up like…" I frowned at Hayden's rotating face. "I dunno wha'ta call her. The lady who had me. My womb donor? I don’t wanna hate her, Hayden. But I kinda do. Y'know? Like, my stupid sperm donor, I don't hate him. He was never there. He came, he went, he was consistently inconsistent. Hey, I said that right, I think."

“You did," he said, weaving through the kitchen.

Someone kissed my forehead. I opened my eyes to see Mom looking down at me. "Hi, Mama."

Her eyes turned hazy with tears. "Hi, honey."

"I got shitfaced."

"So I see."

"Hayden is taking me somewhere." I looked up at him. "Are we going to bed?"

"We sure are."

I patted his chest, and felt a nose, somehow. Weird that he has a nose on his chest. "Oh goody. I like bed with you. You have a big penis and it's very yummy."

Mom spewed something red between her fingers; she ripped a piece of paper towel from the roll and cleaned herself up. “ Okay , I think you really need to go to bed now."

Hayden just laughed.

I looked at Mom. "I love you."

“Love you more, sweet girl.” She kissed my forehead again. "You'll keep an eye on her?" She asked me.

"An eye on who?" I asked.

Mom just snorted. "Not you, baby. I was talking to Hayden."

"Oh."

"Of course,” Hayden said.

“I have to pee,” I said. “But I lost the way to the bathroom.”

“I got you covered, honey.”

The Hayden boat carried me through the kitchen, down the hallway, and to my bedroom. I found myself on my feet in the bathroom, Hayden tugging my PJ bottoms down. I tried to help and only ended up tripping.

"Just let me, okay?" He slid the bottoms off. "Have a seat." He helped me sit down on the toilet. "Can you go?"

"Go?" I frowned up at him. "Go where?"

"Pee, babe. You said you had to pee."

"I did?"

He sighed. "Oh boy. Yeah, you did."

I shrugged. "Oh." I went cross-eyed as I summoned my pee, and discovered I did in fact have a lot. I looked at Hayden, who was facing away from me. "I've never peed in front of a dude before."

"First for me, too."

"You think it's weird?"

"Not at all. I'm glad you're comfortable enough with me to do so."

I wiped and went to pull up my pants, but I was sitting down still, and also wasn’t wearing pants. "You took away my pants."

"You spilled something on them."

"Oh.”

"You want something clean to wear?"

"No. I like no pants. Do you like no pants?"

He laughed. "I don't typically sleep naked."

I stabbed a finger at the ceiling and almost poked my eye out. “Ow, shit." I tried again and managed to miss my face the second time around. "I do. I sleep naked all the time. Alone. I don't sleep with boys." I peered at him. "I slept with you last night."

“We did sleep together."

"It was nice. I like sleeping with you. You're the only boy I've ever slept with."

He looked at me. “Really?"

“Really. Apparently I have Daddy issues. In my stupid brain," I poked myself in the temple. "In my stupid, stupid brain, all men are my sperm donor. Even though Bast, my real dad, never left, and Uncle Zane and Uncle Brock and Uncle Bax and Uncles Canaan and Corin, Uncle Lucian, Uncle Xavier, Uncles Roman and Rem and Ram…they all stayed. But apparently it doesn’t fucking matter to my stupid brain, so I fucked a bunch of random dudes because I'm scared of trusting men. Even though I trust all of those men.”

"It's not stupid, Emerson, It's human psychology."

"But I trust you." I tried to get out of my top and got lost. "Help."

Suddenly, the shirt vanished and I was naked.

"I'm naked," I pointed out, in case he had missed it.

"I'm well aware." He took my hands and helped me up. Squirted hand sanitizer on my hands.

"Nookie time?" I asked, rubbing my hands together.

He guided me out of the bathroom and into bed. "As tempting as you are, no. Not in this state."

I blew a raspberry at him. "I may be drunk, but I can still consent." I clapped his face in my hands. "I consent to anything you want to do to me."

"Em, honey, no."

I frowned at him. He was standing beside the bed on my side, having straightened so his face was out of reach. His zipper, however, was not. I reached for it, found the right one on the first try, and got it down. His lovely penis filled the opening, pushing against his underwear.

"I can suck your cock." I looked up at him, giving him what I felt was my best sultry expression. "I want to suck your cock, Hayden. You want me to suck your cock?"

He pulled out of my reach. "Always. But I wouldn't feel right about it when you're this drunk."

I blew another raspberry at him. "Lame. Your cock wants it. Look at him! He's begging for it."

He stuffed himself back into his pants and zipped himself away, wincing. "He very, very much does want it. But it doesn't feel right. I love you, and I won't take advantage of you."

"But what if I want you to take advantage of me?"

"Then I'm a fool for turning down a blowjob. But I'd rather be a fool than feel like I’ve taken advantage of someone I care about."

I nodded. "I suppose that's a good answer. Sober Emerson will probably have some feelings about all this. Drunk Emerson is just horny." I flopped to my back.

Hayden tugged the blankets out from underneath me and covered me with them, tucking them under my chin. He shucked his shirt and jeans—apparently he'd changed out of his PJs and into jeans and a T-shirt at some point.

I watched him slide into bed beside me. Pushed the blankets down around my stomach. "Hey. Guess what."

He grinned. "What's that?"

I grabbed my tits and shook them. "I have big boobs. See?"

He laughed. "You sure do. You have the sexiest boobs I've ever seen."

"You should see Delia's," I said. "Hers are even bigger than mine.”

"I think I'll stick with yours."

I nodded seriously. "That's a very good idea. You should definitely stick with my boobs." I held them and looked down at them. "Hey, remember when you came on mine? Twice?"

He groaned a laugh. "Yes, Emerson. I remember quite well."

"You made them sticky. I liked it.” I looked at him. "Wanna do it again? You can come on my tits any time you want."

He inhaled, held it, and let it out. "You are not making this easy on me, you know that?"

"Making what easy?"

"Being good."

I rolled toward him and faceplanted into the pillow. "Oops, I missed."

He scooped me up and settled me in the crook of his arm. "Better?"

I nodded against his chest. "Your chest makes me sleepy."

"Good. I've got you, Em."

"I know." I looked up at his chin. "You're a good man, Charlie Brown."

He laughed. "I try."

I felt sleep pulling at me. "Can I ask you a serious question?"

"Always."

"How do we know that we really love each other? What if it's just that the sex is the best sex anyone in the world has ever had? What if you realize you only like me for sex?"

He pushed a curl away from my face. "I was in love with you before we had sex."

"You were?"

“Yeah."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm in love with the person you are, Emerson. Yes, I'm wildly, helplessly, and utterly attracted to your body. You're the hottest, sexiest, most sensual woman I’ve ever met. Sex with you is absolutely mind-boggling. But I would still be in love with you even if sex wasn't an option for whatever reason..”

"So if I was paralyzed and couldn't have sex, you'd still love me?"

"I think most paralyzed people can still have sex, Emerson. In one way or another. But yes."

"Oh." I clicked my fingers against my thumbs as if my hands were crab pincers. "I still have these. I could always just give you handjobs and blowjobs."

"Em?”

"Uh-huh?"

"Ssshhh."

"Hayden?"

"Hmmm?"

"What are your thoughts on handjobs?"

"What?"

“How do you feel about handjobs?"

"I…I'm in favor?"

"But, like, compared to a blowjob."

"Oh." He thought for a moment. "You know, I don't know. I don't know that I've had a handjob. Like, only hands from start to finish. You finishing me off when I pulled out…did that count as a handjob?"

I hummed a noncommittal sound. "Mmm? Yes and no."

"I guess the honest answer is that as a male, any touching of the penis is the best thing in the world. Hands, mouth, vagina, feet, boobs, however we can get our penis touched is good."

"But a handjob by itself is kinda lame, isn't it?" I paused. “Also, don’t say vagina. It’s a stupid word.”

“Noted,” he said. “And lame? No, I wouldn't say it's lame. But if I had to pick between a handjob and a blowjob, I'd probably pick a blowjob.

“Real talk, now, hotshot. Blowjob versus sex."

He sighed. "Em, go to sleep."

"Answers! The people need answers."

"Sex. I'd rather be connected to you. Feel that intimacy with you. A blowjob feels fucking incredible, but it's purely for me. Sure, you may not mind doing it. Maybe some part of you even enjoys it, I don't know. But it's not for you, at the end of the day. You do it to make me feel good. The enjoyment you get is making me feel good. But given the choice, I'll always pick sex."

“I do enjoy it. A fucking lot. Making you feel good makes me feel good. It turns me on."

"For real?"

"Oh yeah." I fumbled my hand under the blanket and found his crotch. "I still want to go down on you, Hayden. I know I'm drunk, but I really do."

He snagged my wrist and moved it to his chest. "I'll tell you what—when you're sober, we'll talk about this. If you tell me that you would consent while sober to doing something drunk, then the next time you get wasted, I'll go along with it. But right now, this is the first time I've been with you drunk. I respect you. I love you. And I won't put you, or me, or us in a position where you might feel like I took advantage of you."

I huffed in annoyance. "Fine. Be all good or whatever."

He chuckled, making me bounce on his chest. "I will."

"Your dick does not thank you."

"No, it doesn't. My dick thinks my conscience is a dumbass.”

I tangled my fingers in his. "I've never met a man who would turn down a blowjob."

"Oh, I don't know about that. I think every male in your family would do the same in this situation.”

I realized he was right. "Hmmm. True." I sighed. "I guess I meant the kind of guys I used to hook up with."

A long silence.

"Hayden?"

An amused snort. “Yes, Emerson?"

"A part of me wishes I hadn't slept around so much. I wish I had more of myself to give you. You're such a good person. I spent so long looking for something in all the wrong places. I feel kinda stupid about it now."

He touched my chin. "Look at me, please." I forced my eyes open—the rotating cake display of Haydens had reduced to only two, wobbling in and out of focus.

"Hi. You're hot."

He smiled. “Thanks, but listen. Okay? You listening?"

I nodded. "Yes sir." I saluted and smacked us both. "Sorry."

He mated our hands and slid them under the blankets. "You need to let that go. You shouldn’t feel guilty or stupid or anything else. I am amazed at the person you are. I love who you are. You impress me. I'm proud of you. I'm proud to know you. Proud to be with you."

"Mean it?"

"Down to my bones, Em." He kissed my knuckles. "You give me everything. You haven't held anything back, even though you're scared. You're brave. You own your sexuality. I'm not jealous or threatened by your sexual history. In some ways, I benefit from it. I hope we're committed to each other and monogamous—I don't want to share you with anyone, but I have absolutely zero negative emotions about your sexual history. I don't like to think about you with someone else, but…"

I sighed. "I normally don't feel this way about it. I never have. Men can do it and they're heroes, rah rah rah, yeah dog, all that shit. Women do it and we're sluts."

"Double standards. It's dumb."

"Exactly. I just…I want you to be proud of me. I guess I crave that attention."

"This is some very deep self-analyzation for one-thirty in the morning on Christmas while drunk."

"Yeah, well." I shrugged. "It's all been there in my brain this whole time. It's just choosing this moment to come out."

"Makes sense. Any other deep thoughts or questions?"

“Yeah, two things."

“Okay. Shoot."

"The key. Is it too much pressure?"

“Not at all." A sigh. "I don’t really want to talk about this too much until you're sober, but I was actually thinking a lot today about what I want and where I want to be, and what I kept coming up with is that I just want to be with you."

“Same.” I sighed sleepily. “Next question. Me changing my name."

"I think it's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful, and I feel privileged to have gotten to witness it."

"I won't take anyone else’s name." I looked up at him. "I know this is probably absolutely cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs to talk about at all, let alone right now, but…if we get married someday, I won’t take your name. Maybe a hyphen, but I will always want my last name to be Badd. It's who I am. It's who I've always been."

He cupped my face. "It's not crazy. And I would never ask you to. I know what it means to you. I see how much it means to you and your family. If we get married, I wouldn't ask you to change your name. If you wanted to hyphenate, that would be your choice."

"We just met. We’re in love. And now I'm talking about getting married and taking names. It is crazy."

He laughed. “Yeah, a little. But like I said, I'm fine being crazy."

"Last question."

He sighed a laugh. "I can't wait."

"Are you my boyfriend?"

"I sure as fuck hope so."

"Good. Because I'm your girlfriend." I sighed happily. “If I hadn't gotten adopted today, I'd say you were my best present ever. I'm not sure how to rank one above the other."

"You don't. Being adopted is beautiful. And you're the best gift I've ever gotten and will ever get."

I sighed again. "Okay. Sleepytime, now."

I woke up with my head in a vice, sand in my mouth, cotton in my throat, and acid in my stomach. I lay in bed for a while, desperately hoping to be able to fall back asleep where it didn't hurt to exist due to my own choices, but alas, no such luck. Once I'm up, I'm up.

"Fuck." The sound of my own voice, a barely audible croak though it was, sent pounding agony through my skull, so, naturally, I did it again. "Fucking fuck me."

I opened my eyes very slowly and very cautiously, and that hurt. The blinds were shut, so there was only a dim yellow glow seeping in from the edges, and that hurt, too.

I farted, and that, indeed, also hurt.

I closed my eyes again and rolled over onto my stomach, which continued to cause unimaginable agony.

"Ow."

I tried a second time to slip into the sweet embrace of death, where at least it wouldn't hurt; I was denied entry, damn the world.

I cracked an eye open halfway, and that was tolerable. I spied a forest-green Stanley on my nightstand.

"Please have water in you," I whispered, and my voice, even in a whisper, came through a cheese grater with rocks and acid. Did I throw up? I didn't remember throwing up.

I reached for the Stanley and the promise of sweet, sweet water, the nectar of life, and discovered to my nauseated horror that the other side of the bed was, at minimum, six thousand miles away. Which meant I had to drag myself across the vast wasteland of my queen bed, certain I was going to perish from thirst before I reached the promised land; if the thirst didn't kill me, the pounding in my head every time I moved would.

I finally was able to get my hand around the handle of the Stanley and dragged it toward me. It was heavy and sloshed—so far, so good. It even clinked. If this was ice water, I swore to name my first child after whomever arranged for this life-giving gift. I rested the Stanley on my belly and tipped it toward myself, craning my neck and reaching with my lips for the straw…water colder than the Weddell Sea sloshed onto my chest, provoking a breathless shriek of shock.

Yep, ice water.

Very, very, very cold ice water.

"Fuck,” I snarled again.

I struggled mightily against the implacable forces of gravity and managed to sit almost entirely upright. I panted after my labors and then rewarded myself with a sip of water.

"Oh, thank you sweet baby Jesus."

"My name is Hayden, actually."

I screamed, dropped the Stanley and caught it by some miracle, spilling more ice water on my naked stomach, and then farted again.

"I must have had beer last night," I croaked.

"What didn’t you have?"

"I don't know." I cracked my eye open and located the owner of the voice—Hayden, sitting in the chair in the corner of my room, laptop on his knees, shirtless in blue jeans, the light of the screen bathing him blue. "Beer gives me farts.”

He chuckled. "Oh, I know. You've been blowing ass for three hours."

"I would be so embarrassed I want to die for farting in front of you, but I hurt too much." I took another sip of water, sighed, and sipped again. "I feel like someone dragged me backward through a woodchipper and then set me on fire."

He got up, set his laptop down, still open, on the chair, and rounded the foot of the bed. He picked up something on the nightstand and handed it to me. A shot glass full of tequila.

"Fuck you. I thought you loved me," I rasped.

He laughed. "Take it."

"I might throw up."

He bent and picked up a small trash can. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Is that why my throat hurts?"

"That and the yelling during the card game."

"I don't remember yelling during a card game."

"What do you remember?"

I took the shot glass and threw back the contents, hissing as it scraped down my throat and hit my stomach like a bomb. "Ah fuck, that's awful."

He took something else from the nightstand: a pair of aspirin. “Now this."

I swallowed them with a long drink of water. "The last thing I remember is…" I hunted through hazy snatches of memory. "Foosball with the L-gang."

"The L-gang?"

"Yeah, Canaan and Aerie's kids—Liam, Lennox, Lucas, and Lena. They're the L-gang. Delia, Dunc, and Dane are the D-gang. I'm an honorary member of the D-gang even though my name doesn’t start with D." I winced and touched my head. "Talking is hard."

Hayden laughed. "I bet. You really tied one on last night."

I rested my head back against the headboard with a sigh. "I'm sorry."

He sat on the edge of the bed. "For what?"

"Making you babysit me. Getting sloppy. Embarrassing myself."

He pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek. "Nothing to apologize for. There was no babysitting. You didn't embarrass yourself." He tilted his head to one side. "Mostly."

I sipped water. "Meaning?"

"I was carrying you to bed, and we passed your mom. She kissed you on the head and you announced that I have a big penis and it's very yummy—that's pretty much verbatim."

I shook my head carefully. "I mean, it's true, so whatever." My stomach cramped, and I winced until it passed—I wasn't about to cut loose any more cheek-flappers in front of Hayden. "So, other than that, and apparently a lot of gas, what else?"

"Do you remember anything before you fell asleep? Us talking?"

"Nope. What'd I say?"

"Oh, well, a lot of stuff, most of it silly, drunk nonsense. But you talked about having father issues because of your biological dad, and being embarrassed about your sexual history and how you wished you had more of yourself to give me. You tried to, um, go down on me."

"Tried to? Was I too drunk to follow through?"

He shook his head. "No, I wouldn't let you."

I stared at him. "Why?"

He frowned. "You were blasted, Emerson. I'm not about to take advantage of you like that.”

I melted a little. "Hayden, honey. You should've let me. I like doing that to you. I'd do it sober, so it's not taking advantage when I’m drunk."

"I just…this is new, you know? I feel like I know you, but I couldn't let that happen in that situation. Drunk consent is not consent." He shrugged. "I don’t regret it. I'd make the same decision."

"God, Hayden, can you be any more perfect?" I rested my hand on his knee. "Thank you for taking such good care of me."

"I'm far from perfect, Em. But I am in love with you, and I will always protect you, even if it's from yourself."

"I talked about my daddy issues, huh?"

"Yup."

"It's stupid. I shouldn't have daddy issues—Bast has been my father, my daddy, my whole life."

"It's not that simple, Em. The things people go through when they're very young stick with you. Bast is an amazing father. He loves you. But that doesn't change the fact that your biological father abandoned you, and that shit leaves scars."

I moaned. "I'm way too hungover for this shit." I sipped more water. "What else did we talk about?"

"How you won't take my name if we were to get married."

"Oh for fuck's sake. Really?"

He just chuckled. "It's fine."

"A little soon for that talk."

“No, it's not. You changed your name and got adopted on the same day. It's a lot. It's gonna be on your mind."

"Could you stop being so understanding for one second? Like, for real. Do something selfish. I'm starting to worry you're not real because so far, you seem way too good to be true."

He shook his head. "I'm just this guy, you know? I never put the toilet seat down, I leave my clothes on the floor instead of the hamper until I have to do laundry or go naked, and then I live out of the clean laundry basket. I hate reality TV. I hate pop music. I'm not perfect." He reached out and cupped my boob, squeezed it. "There. I did something selfish."

I cackled. "Oooh, a boob-honk. The horror."

"Wait, asymmetry irritates me." He caressed and then honked the other boob. "There. Fixed it."

I shook my head, snorting a laugh. "If that’s your idea of selfish…"

"What, you think I'm gonna be like, ‘Hey, about that blowjob you offered me last night’ when you're hungover as fuck?"

I shrugged, nodded. "Uhhh, yeah. Most guys would."

"I don't know about that."

"I do."

He shook his head. "To be fair, I don't have a lot of friends, so I don't know."

“You don't?"

"Not really. I have a group of people I've been playing Diablo with for several years, but I only know them online."

"But no I-R-L friends?"

A shrug. "Nah. I'm a homebody, and kind of a loner. I was your stereotypical gamer kid and computer dork growing up. Meaning, a complete loser. I got fit and got contacts, but that didn't change my essential nature. Inside, I’m still the kid who's more comfortable alone in front of a computer than in a group of people."

"You seem perfectly comfortable around all of us," I said.

"I've mastered the art of faking it until I make it. I always have a voice in the back of my head telling me I'm not cool, none of these people actually like me, I'm such a loser, blah blah blah. I just tell that voice to shut the fuck up."

"Does it work?"

"Most of the time.”

"Huh." I smiled at him. Threaded my fingers with his. “You're not a loser. You're the best person I know."

"Until we’re supposed to go out on a date and I'm still in front of my computer, finishing a raid or a batch of analytics."

I thrust my chest out and shook my bare tits at him. "I'll just do this.”

He grinned. "That'll probably work."

"Would you ever choose your computer or your game over sex?"

"Fuck no. I literally daydreamed as a teenager about a woman pretty much exactly like you. The way you want me, the way you touch me, the way you seem to be genuinely attracted to me. You are, very literally and most sincerely, everything I’ve ever daydreamed and fantasized about. So no, I'll never choose anything over you. And if I ever do, please just shoot me."

"I am attracted to you, Hayden. ” I let out a breath. "Okay. I need to shower. Hopefully that'll help me feel more human.'

"Coffee?"

"Shower first."

He leaned in and kissed my cheekbone. "Brush your teeth, too."

"Why do you think I haven't kissed you?" I shook my head. "Hayden, I promise, I only get like that once a year. I don’t drink much the rest of the year."

“I’ve already told you, you don't need to apologize, explain, or feel bad. I love you, and I like taking care of you." He stood up. "I'll leave you to shower."

I caught his hand before he got away. "Hey. This is sober me telling you this—next time, say yes. Okay?"

He grinned. "I hear you. And I will, now that I know it’s what you want."

"I'd make good on it now, but I wouldn’t want to put my puke breath on your lovely penis."

He lifted our joined hands and kissed the back of mine. “Get a shower, babe. I'll be out in the kitchen.”

I watched him go.

That there is a good man. I'm not letting him go. Would I move to Indiana and give up soccer for him? I damn well might.

I just didn’t want to have to make that choice.

What do you do when love and life take you in opposing directions?