Unsteady

by Peyton Corinne

Every part of my usual numbness starts to fade away at the promise of her.

But I’m in her orbit now, and she’s becoming my goddamn center of gravity. Whether she realizes it or not.

“All right, hotshot, let’s make a deal.” No deal needed—if she keeps looking at me like this, I’ll do anything she says.

Crumbs. I’ll eat every last one.

“Because you are my son, a piece of my heart, love, and you have been drowning. Maybe you still are.”

“Sadie is just a friend.” “Sadie? Pretty name.” Pretty girl. I bite down on my tongue,

“Gray?” she asks. “It’s your eyes.” I smile. She giggles, but it turns into a sob. “Sorry,” she says. “Nope. Not doing that apology thing.”

Her chest starts to heave. I firmly press a hand down on her sternum, trying to bring her back.

And a stupid pair of brown eyes are taking over my entire brain.

“I like anything when it comes to you,” he confesses, and my heart clenches.

The need to feel something, just to ground myself.

“Right, well, you’re the one who stuck your tongue down my throat, kitten, so your brand of not-friendship is one I can handle, I think.”

He reaches across the console, his massive wingspan stretching until he’s able to keep me from closing the door. It’s surprisingly attractive and my cheeks blush with heat.

I’ve helped him when he couldn’t stand; he’s offering to do the same.

“Absolutely not,” both Rhys and I say at the same time. “I didn’t do anything!” he barks, hands raising high in surrender. “I was only up here looking for your dumb

Genuine, but quiet, like the soft sadness etched permanently into his eyes that no one besides me seems able to see.

“Then she can play them with me. Get the fuck out of here.”

“I’m only doing this if we talk after.” “What if I don’t want to?” “Sadie.”

“Not a hardship to get a beautiful woman soaking wet,” he quips before I can elbow him in the gut, or tape his mouth shut, or find a way to rewind time and never let him become my friend.

“Rhys is an overprotective crazy person, and Ro here is walking like a baby giraffe, so let us drop you, yeah?”

“You could repay me by getting coffee. With me, I mean.” Something stupid like that.

“Tonight was—” I groan, my hands covering my face as I beg, “Please don’t say good, I don’t think I can handle that again.”

“Good night, kotyonok.”

Bantering with him brings my anxiety down, calming me in an almost unsettling way, where I crave the next little interaction between us.

The idea of him panicked and alone makes my stomach hurt. I can’t explain it, but I feel an intense protectiveness over his pain.

“Yeah.” He smiles; dimples. I freeze, because if I move, I will kiss him. Grab his usually shaking hands.

“You stop trying to control everything and let the nice hockey boys play with your brothers while you take a moment to not be their mom.”

I’ll do anything for her, protect her endlessly, forever. Oliver, Liam, Ro. My family. “Okay.”

“Rhys Koteskiy.”

It warms something in me that this enigmatic girl, Sadie’s best—and I honestly think only—friend, approves of me. Even if Sadie herself doesn’t.

Shaking my head, I spot the text beneath the photo—after I save it to my phone so I can stare at it for an embarrassing length of time.

My body is healed fully, every bit of it pressed back together. My mind is the thing that’s permanently broken.

Does she know I’d kneel for her forever if it meant she’d look at me like that?

She’s burned into my every thought, like some sweet scent that brings back every good memory I’ve locked away.

For the first time since March, I feel… alive. Which is somehow more dangerous, because now, I don’t think I can let her go.

He brings a hand to his chest as he looks down at me affectionately. “I’m hurt, Gray.” I can’t help but match his smile with one of my own.

I don’t need him or his help. Or his stupid dimples.

“I want you,” bursts from my lips, because she’s all I need. I don’t care about being in the open, getting caught. But if she does, then it matters to me.

I broke more than my body during that game; my mind is fucking splintered.

“But I’m not some boy you’re using to try to feel nothing. You’re going to feel everything with me.”

“Please.” I am gone for this girl.

“I don’t usually do this.” “What? Hook up in a bathroom?” He smirks at me again, eyes twinkling. “Funny—every time I’ve had my mouth on you has been in a bathroom.”

This is going to burn. He is going to burn me. Except I don’t care. I’ll let him burn me if he keeps touching me like this.

“Never mind—I’m not missing my chance. Yes.” “Really?” I smile brightly. He mimics it. “If that’s what you want, Gray, then yes.”

I laughed louder than I had in months, a smile stretching my skin until my cheeks hurt.

And I want to be hers, almost more than I want her to be mine.

I’m torn between loving the way it feels to be with him, and hating how much I love the way it feels to be with him.

And, just like every time before, he waits until my car starts and drives to follow me out of the lot.

“That’s… that’s really nice,” I say, feeling lame as the words leave my lips. It’s more than that. It’s everything. It’s a piece of me that only she holds the key to. It’s the acceptance of me as I am, by the only person that matters right now.

Not to me, I want to say. I’ll never take it off.