TRIGGER WARNING: The following chapter contains discussions of an eating disorder. 

Heath pulls me through the crowd with him by the hand, weaving through the anonymous people in black dresses and tuxes. It seems so easy. Too easy.

We run into a group talking to my parents and he stops. My heart jumps into my throat. Mom spots him and her eyes widen. "Heath! Darling!" He snakes an arm around my waist, turning me to him and away from her. She can't see I've been crying if she can't see me. "It feels like forever since we've seen you. How have you been? How is the family?"

"Everyone is doing great, Mrs. H. Thank you for asking."

I place my hand on his shoulder and rest my chin on top of it. Looking back and taking a deep breath, I lock eyes with Lenny.

He stands with some of our dads' associates. They talk, but all he does is stare at me. His expression is unreadable, but Heath's hand on my hip and my smudged lipstick paints quite a picture, I assume. I turn my head back to look at Heath and find him already looking at me. He takes a step and my hope returns.

"Tell your parents I said hello, won't you?" my mom adds.

"Absolutely."

He shields me from view until we slip through the front doors of the banquet hall. When my heels sink into the hallway's carpet, I can't believe it.

Just like that. I'm free.

He pushes the button for the elevator and we wait. The crowd visible through the open doors keeps the last of my fear from subsiding, but next to him, I feel safe. His hand strokes up and down my back as if to say, you're okay. I realize I'm clutching onto him.

The elevator chimes and we step on with some others from the party. When the doors close, a sense of relief hits me like a tsunami. I breathe away the tears that come to my eyes, refusing to cry with witnesses.

Without saying a word, Heath pulls me against his chest. I wrap my arms around his waist and rest my head on his shoulder. My tears fade.

"I'm sorry I was late," he says beneath the volume of the elevator's crooning jazz. His expression is apologetic. Morose, in a way. It surprises me.

"It's okay."

The shadow of a smirk twitches on his lips. "Really?"

I rub my hand up and down his chest. "Really."

The elevator stops and the couple next to us gets off. Heath keeps looking at me with those gray eyes. 

I don't know what I'm thinking—if I'm thinking at all—but when the doors close, I lean closer. He doesn't move away. My eyes drop to his lips as they brush over mine to tease them apart, and with a sigh, he kisses me.

I relax in the feeling of his lips on mine, melting beneath his touch, my mind quiet for the first time since we were last together. I cup his face in my hand and deepen the kiss.

With his hand at the nape of my neck, he pulls me in for another just as the elevator slows.

Our lips part with reluctance, and our eyes catch. He stares into them as he leans away, leaving my body buzzing with a confusing mix of sensations. We leave the elevator hand in hand and I know exactly where we're going.

. . .

In his apartment, in his bed, the lights are low and the passion is high. I can't remember the last time I felt this way. High and desperate at the same time.

He inhales a sharp breath when my lips crest his head and I slide the tip of my tongue back and forth against his slit. I can't take it any longer.

I push myself up and crawl up toward his lap. In his seated position, he reaches for the little packet beside him. He can't finish tearing it open before I have him straddled and placed at my entrance.

He stops me from sinking onto him. "Babe, wait. I don't have—" 

"I don't care," I breathe.

"Yes, you do." But I don't. Right now, all I care about is quelling my urge. I wrap my arms around his neck and widen my knees.

"Teagan." His breath shudders as he fights himself. Still, he stops me. With more sense than I could possibly muster, he rolls on the condom and pulls me back into position. Pushing my hips down, I finally feel him. 

His hand grips my ass while I slide myself up and down his length. Bracing myself with both hands behind his neck, I watch his face twist when his head falls back with a moan. I drop harder onto his lap, my body numb to everything but the heat building around him inside me. His eyes look into mine with insistence. I don't fight him when he lifts me from him, or when he pulls me into a kiss.

He sucks my lips deliciously. The taste of sex taunts me each time my tongue licks his. He holds me while I move slower than before, not wanting to break the kiss. I realize we're falling when he rolls me onto my back beneath him.

As much as I hate his lips leaving mine, I don't hate what he does to me at all.

"Yes," I sigh when the pleasure blooms inside me. Heath moans as if in acknowledgment.

His pace is fast and deliberate, his hips pumping between my thighs while he stares down at me. Sweat glistens against his skin as he pants.

"Fuck," he whispers, stopping his pace. His head falls back while he strokes it slow and deep. His perfect body is on full display as he pulls himself out to the tip and plunges back inside me hands-free. While I shiver, his fingers do lazy circles against my favorite spot. The feeling makes me quiver around him.

Falling forward, he lies on me and buries his head in my neck. He pulls my legs up by the back of my thighs and starts fucking me hard and fast.

My moan comes out like a gasp. As basic as the position is, his intensity makes it so hot. His breathy moans in my ear, his muscular body rolling on top of mine while our hips clash violently. He's hard, deep, stroking in just the right places—all of it makes my eyes roll back and my legs shake.

"Oh my God," I groan. "Heath, baby, yes. Yes!" I barely recognize the words spewing from my mouth. His arm wraps around me and a hand cradles my neck. His grip on my nape makes me feel dominated, supported. "Oh, God. Yes, just like that!"

His lips on my neck, his teeth soon after. My nails claw the skin of his back and his ass. His moan sets off a spark inside me and I clench around him. I lose myself to the feeling.

"Ah!" I cry out. He keeps stroking deep as my pussy grips and releases him, each wave blinding me and drowning me in deep, burning pleasure.

I fall limp as he continues to take me, my body still rolling through my orgasm. With a groan, his hips shudder and ruin his rhythm. His pace slows, and after a few more delicious thrusts, stops.

With my head still cradled in his hand, his other wrapped around my shoulder, I lay swimming underneath him. I stroke my palm against the scratches on his back, ready to compliment him when I can form words again. But when his shoulders shake, I go cold.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

He leaves me, hiding his face as he moves to the edge of the bed. He fiddles with the condom, but I can tell he's crying. 

With my head still floating from my orgasm, I barely manage to cover myself and crawl over to sit beside him. As I watch him cry, I try to make sense of what is happening. "Heath. What's going on?"

"It's nothing," he says.

"It's obviously something." I cling the sheet to my chest and lean to get a better view of his face. "You're freaking me out. Tell me what's going on."

He looks up with a sigh, wiping a tear from his eye. "It's my parents." I wait for him to elaborate. "They're not getting a divorce. I've been fighting with my dad because he keeps putting my mom in rehab."

No part of that sentence makes sense. "What?"

"It's not what you're thinking. I mean, it is, but . . . Please don't tell the guys."

"Why would I—? You think I'm going to gossip about your mom? I love her more than my own most days."

"I'm sorry, I know you wouldn't."

"It's okay. Tell me what's going on. Is she okay?"

"She's . . ." He takes a moment to collect his thoughts. "She has been abusing pills. But she's not addicted to them, she's addicted to being thin."

I hide my surprise. I don't know what to say. Should I say anything? "Oh."

"She's been on and off diet pills for forever, from the time she was in pageants to now. They're just unregulated amphetamines." I curse under my breath. The look of shame on his face breaks my heart. "She keeps taking them, they fuck with her brain, and she loses track of reality, what year it is, everything. Doctors think it's drug-induced psychosis, and that the cycle will continue unless she gets help for the eating disorder she's had for decades, but Dad finds the pills and instantly sends her away to a rehab facility she hates. Then when she begs me to get her out, I have to decide if I want her to be miserable or Dad to be pissed."

Jesus. "That's why he cut you off?"

"Yeah." He wipes his cheek, but still can't look at me. "I broke her out of rehab and got in touch with a psychiatrist. She said she would go see them, but she started taking the pills as soon as she got home and Dad blamed me for it."

"What? That's not your fault."

"It doesn't feel that way." He looks at me and his brow crumples again. "I love my mom. I see what she goes through and I can't do anything to help her. Dad never comes out and says 'you need to be exactly like this or you're worthless,' but the only time he seems to care is when she doesn't maintain the image of her he has in his mind."

My thoughts stutter. I have to remind myself he's talking about his mom and not me.

"Teags . . . What were you doing in the bathroom at the party?" His eyes stare into mine, pleading for the truth. "Have you been purging again?"

My body tenses. "No," I say out of habit.

"Really?"

I stare at him but don't know what to say. I don't want to lie to him after he told me so much truth. "It was only a few times. I haven't done it in forever."

"But what about the rest of the time? Are you eating enough? Do you feel guilty or anxious when you do?"

I can't answer his questions, because I'd have to admit it to myself first.

My eyes well with tears. I feel seen for the first time in a while, but it still hurts. Like removing a dirty bandage to help clean the wound beneath. It's not pity behind his words, it's the understanding no one else seems to have. A helpful sort of pain.

"Sometimes, yeah," I say past the lump in my throat. "I just get stressed out sometimes."

"What started it again?"

"School, the wedding, Jeremy bailing. Now Rowan." I want to cry again. "He told me he hates me."

"Hates you?"

"He thinks I'm perfect, that I've never made a mistake. But that's not true at all. You know that."

"No one is perfect, but you're pretty damn close."

I lose my fight with my tears. "That's how he feels. That the whole time I've been killing myself to make them happy, they've been turning it around to put more pressure on him."

"Your parents have always been on your asses. You shouldn't have to feel you're not enough if you don't do everything they want," he says. "Did you tell him that?"

I shake my head. "Even if that were true, I thought I was helping him by being the perfect kid they wanted. I can't remember the last time I did something I wanted to do until . . ." I hesitate to admit it. "Until I did this. With you."

He gives a weak laugh. "Yeah, well . . . Me either."

Tears cloud my eyes until I can no longer make out the features of his face. I wipe them away before they fall.

Heath's hand strokes against my back."I know we have our shit, but I don't want you to hurt yourself or feel like you have to struggle on your own." Tears choke him again. He breathes them away, then looks me in the eye. "I love what we're doing and I love the contract. The sex is amazing, Teags. Seriously. But sometimes, I just . . . fucking miss my best friend."

I twist my lips to keep them from quivering. Moving closer, I wrap my arm around him. He hugs me back. "I'm still here," I say into his shoulder. His grip tightens.

We let go and look away from one another. I dry my face and Heath clears his throat. The silence lingers.

"Now that we've made that awkward as fuck, do you want to have sex again?" he asks.

I laugh. "Yeah."

_____

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