Page 31 of Hey Girl

I can barely register Chris’s confused expression, let alone explain myself so I just hold my phone out to him. He takes it, his eyes squinted in concentration as he reads Wonder Boy’s response.

“Why would you send me a picture of the state of Florida, you sick bitch?” He looks up with his features compressed together. “Hey!” And then rather than joining me in my throes of laughter, he looks back down and starts furiously typing. “No one calls my girl that!” His fingers start furiously tapping as he once again reads his response aloud. “Well… you sent me…a pic of a…stillborn gopher. I thought we were just swapping…pics of random stuff.”

My laughter is just starting to bubble out when he looks back down at me, his face relaxing. Tossing my phone to land softly on the other side of the couch, he sits down close and reaches for me. Oddly, I don’t shy away from the personal space his frame is consuming. He lets out a breath, like he’s decompressing - not something I’ve seen him do before - as he reaches for my arms, and starts running his hands up and down my sleeves.

His hands are warm, and it seeps through to my skin, and he’s applying just the right amount of pressure. A comforting caress… this is something I’ve never gotten before.

“This is nice,” I manage the words as the last of my giggles peter out.

“This?” Chris nods to his hands on my arms and I nod back.

“Yeah, I like it.”

“Think you could brave coming a little closer?” He’s regarding me cautiously but he’s giving me that cheesy half-smile, too and it makes another silent giggle escape. And why not? We were strapped together earlier today, and what he’s doing is calming, even though I don’t need to be calmed right now. Just this touch is like a warm blanket of security and I’m more than eager to find out the wonders a cuddle could do for me.

“Yeah,” I nod my head and scooch closer to him. He lifts one leg to pull me closer, and - CROTCH ALERT! I’m sitting on his crotch!

Chris must hear the alarm bells going off in my head because he deftly pulls me against his chest and continues rubbing his hands up and down my back and says, “Easy Mouse. The Captain is under firm orders to stand down until further notice.”

“The Captain?”

“Yeah, you didn’t….? Nevermind,” he clears his throat nervously.

“I didn’t what?” I ask him.

“I uh… thought maybe you saw the tattoo.” He shrugs, and it pulls me against him a little tighter.

“Tattoo?”

Tattoo. Crotch. Dick pic. Oh!

“Ohh…” I muse, flatly. I hadn’t gotten a gander at that as I was frozen stock still by the sheer size of his member, but -, “You have a tattoo there?”

“Hey, I lose a bet, I follow through.”

I let out another laugh and shake my head before daring to lay it down all the way on his chest.

All these things happening since I met Chris should have me under my bed, and yet, I’m here - in the arms of the worlds most extroverted rockstar. And I’m laughing.

I guess Chris is showing me that some things are possible.

9

CHRIS

Uggh… what the hell kind of shenanigans could I have gotten into this time? Because the last I knew I was at Rebecca’s house, but clearly, I passed out in the desert with a sack of beans on my chest. I mean, if the cotton mouth and heaviness in the chest are anything to go by. Or maybe I’m at the dentist. I chance peeling one eyelid open, and holy fuck do I need some Visine. And now I really need to know what the fuck I got into last night because I’m laying here with a naked alien?—

Wait.

“Iggy,” I croak affectionately at Rebecca’s cat in his perpetual birthday suit and give his naked ears a scratch. Holy fucking shit, I … slept!

According to all the experts and everyone else I’ve ever met I should feel wholly amazing but I actually feel like I’ve been wrung out, dried out and fried. When was my last BLAST? Oh shit, it was sometime yesterday afternoon - early afternoon.

No wonder my eyes feel like microwaved grapes and my head is pounding. I need caffeine, stat. I’m hollowed out andI’m certain the blood in my veins has solidified, refusing to flow through my body.

Panicking, I grab Iggy by his cute little face.

“Iggy. Talk me down, man,” I beg of him, just as I hear keys in the front door and it swings open. The sudden flood of outdoor sunshine makes me hiss, just as Rebecca mercifully closes it. She greets me with her usual shy smile as she makes her way around the couch with a drink carrier containing two coffee drinks, one looking suspiciously like the one I ordered at Cafe Dumbass the day I met her there.