The Canary Cowards

by Jescie Hall

He tucked my thong into the corner of my purse again. Damn him and his hatred for the floss between my ass.

Eric couldn't handle my life.

And all I want is to see my boy out there doing what he does best, inspiring the world around him, just as you inspire me.”

She gave everything so I could have the world she ultimately deserves.

It felt like something Joey would say to Chandler, so here we are.”

I’m protective of my people.

With his dark, piercing gaze set on mine, I can almost see the chip right there on his shoulder.

She looks stale. If a person can look stale.

“You may know your body, Mr. Decker, but I know your injury,”

I'm such a guy right now. Everything she just said, I pictured with a side of sex. Meet my limits? Break me? Girl, you wish you could. I'd rock your whole bland little homeless world.

“It's best not to be ashamed of a body that heals itself with such beauty.”

This asshole has the audacity to have gunmetal blue eyes. The kind that shoot you down, catching shrapnel to the chest with every gaze.

No matter how infuriating this life we’ve been dealt can be, I love him so much. I'm his Dyl Pickle, and he's my Collie. It's just us.

The fact that she tries not to look attractive but looks like this when no one is watching is doing something strange to me. A hidden sex pot of honey.

“I'm just trying to figure out why you wear what you're wearing when you have a body like that beneath it.”

I think I like it when she says my name.

A system in which a younger sister isn't old enough to be the legal guardian to the only person who ever understood her.

I can't help but feel a strange sense of protectiveness over the general attraction that's drowning me.

I think I have a crush on that stupid boy.

Makeup looks amazing on her, but it's also covering those little freckles on her nose I've been counting.

His entire aura surrounds me like a fog I can't escape, closing in on me, making it impossible to see clearly.

This strange feeling of protectiveness is still beneath my skin, making me itch for retaliation against whoever thought it right to lay hands on her.

“You gotta touch me, Dylan,” I say huskily.

“Touch me,” I demand. “Lake…” she whispers breathlessly, as if my name alone pains her.

“If you can honestly tell me right now you want me to stop, then I'll stop,” I whisper, staring directly into her gorgeous, burning eyes.

“We don't have to tell anyone.” I pull her deeper between my thighs again, so her hips meet the edge of the table I'm propped on. “If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No one?” she whispers. “Never,” I reiterate, shaking my head. She sighs. “It’s a bad idea, Lake.” “But you want to,” I say, reaching for the answer in her head. “Don't you?”

“Let me ask you this,” I say, tipping my head back, looking at the curve of her mouth and back into her eyes. “If you knew you could have me all to yourself for one night, no strings attached, would you take it?”

“One night with me would never be enough for you, Decker,” she breathes into my ear.

My world is shook.

I want to erase that feeling on my skin only he could produce.

“You fucked me up, Dylan.”

“Please. Just please tell me I can kiss you.”

We're both losing this game, and I can't believe I'm even thinking this, but I've never loved losing more.

Everywhere I kiss, I'm claiming as mine.

“How can you be possessive of something that isn't yours?” Because you will be mine. You just don't know it yet.

There's no way I'll be able to forget this. I've already memorized her every curve. Fallen for the taste of her lips. I'm in serious fucking trouble if she thinks I won't be thinking about trying to do this again.

But fear quickly stamps that anticipation as I eye the school bus full of children he thinks he's driving into me.

He's a God. The archetype of male beauty. Who is this mythical man of perfection, and from which fucking realm did he descend?!

I can't be his prey. I won't be his conquest.

I've never felt so wanted, so valued, so needed by someone before, especially not during sex.

But what's happening between us is only stoking the fire, adding more to the coals that burn beneath. Igniting something and strengthening it like gas to the flames we deny. Flames that need to be snuffed out immediately before the irreversible damage is done.

Lake Decker made love to me. He doesn't need to fuck me. I've successfully found a way to fuck myself.

Colin's future depends on my decisions, and I totally fucked them away by being a selfish, dick-hungry whore.

My luck is shit on as an older woman checks the number above my row. She smiles at me, and I give her a forced grin back. Pushing her bag up into the overhead, she actually passes gas in front of my face. I drop my head into my hands, groaning as I pull my sweatshirt up and over my nose as inconspicuously as possible.

My wants come last, and I've always been okay with that. I can handle it. But this is something he doesn’t know I've been aching to hold in my hands for the longest time. So small. So meaningless to most, but so meaningful to me.

“It's the not being able to kiss you that makes me want to kiss you, you see?”

It's a soft kiss, not like the heated passion of last night. No, this kiss is wrapped in care. Soft, sweet, delicate care.

This kiss is the kind you wish to never have. You feel it in places you didn't know existed. Stretching to parts that will forever remember this and the way it changed you. Knowing it will be one of those moments you look back on when you're older, cementing in time.

This kiss is that. It's definable. I feel it everywhere. And nothing hurts worse.