Chapter 123 - Remember When - Part 2

~ SASHA ~

"What do you think about… about staying out here, on the porch while I'm here?" he asked her quietly. His dark hair fell over his eyes as he looked down on her, but his jaw was tight and his eyes shadowed.

Sasha had blinked. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Did he not want her?

Zev ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck, the other hand plunged into the pocket of his jeans. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just… I'm thinking there's some stuff I should talk to you about… before… I mean, your parents might come home and… why don't we just talk?"

She'd laughed suddenly, and clapped a hand over her mouth, cursing herself for the stupid, knee-jerk reaction she always had to stress. "You want to sit out here and… talk?" she asked when she got herself under control.

Zev nodded. "I need to tell you some stuff, I think," he said. And his voice wasn't that honeyed gravel she'd always loved. It wasn't even the warm smile he usually had.

He sounded tense, and stressed and…

"Okay," she said. "I guess I'll go make some cocoa and get a blanket."

He nodded. "I'll wait out here."

"Won't you be cold?"

He gave a self-deprecating smile. "I've never felt the cold like other people," he said without meeting her eyes. "It's fine. Take your time. Don't worry about me."

She'd gone inside feeling confused and afraid. Was he going to break up with her? There'd been no signs at all that he was unhappy—not at school, not at dinner. Not until they were leaving the diner…

She hurried through making the cocoa and grabbed a quilt from the couch as she passed through the living room, but her heart was pounding with nerves and she had some trouble juggling the mugs and blanket with the door. Zev had leaped up from the couch on the porch and opened the door for her, but when he smiled it was forced.

Sasha couldn't meet his eyes. She walked to the little table they had in front of the couch, put the mugs down a little harder than necessary, and slumped onto the couch with the quilt over her lap.

As soon as Zev sat down she didn't even give him a chance to speak. "What's going on, Zev? Are you breaking up with me?"

"What?! No!" he said, eyebrows high and his face alarmed. "No! Sasha… why would you even think that."

She gaped at him. "You were weird in the car, then when we got here and found out we were alone you looked like you'd swallowed something painful."

Zev clawed his hands through his hair and scooted along the couch until they were thigh-to-thigh. "I'm sorry, Sash, I didn't mean to scare you. You were just… looking at me different tonight and it got me thinking and I realized I hadn't really ever talked to you about why… why I don't… why we haven't—"

"Are you gay?" Sasha whispered. Then she swallowed hard. "You can tell me… if you are… I wouldn't judge."

Zev raised an eyebrow. "Well, thanks, but… Seriously, Sash?"

"Well, I don't know," she'd grumbled. "I mean, I don't have a lot of experience with this. But what little I do have has a lot to do with fending off stealth attacks from guys in movie theaters and on couches. But you… you don't do that and… it doesn't seem normal. I mean, it seems like maybe you don't want me…" she looked at her hands, cheeks heating that she'd just blurted it out.

Zev let his head drop back against the couch and put his hands to his face with a heavy sigh. Sasha had been alarmed—he was always so sunny and upbeat. Even when he got mad, he didn't stay that way. She didn't think she'd ever seen him sad or… heavy. Yet, here he was, suddenly looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

What the hell was going on?

"You can tell me anything, Zev. I'll still care about you," she whispered, but tears were threatening because it felt like whatever he was about to say—

"I've had sex lots of times before you, Sash—with females," he said dryly. "I don't judge either but that's… that's not my thing."

Sasha tried not to make her relief too obvious. "So, if you aren't scared to do it at all… why don't you want to do it with me?"

He dropped his hands to his thighs and without pulling his head up from the back of the couch he turned his head to look up at her. "You really think I don't want to?"

"I didn't. Until tonight," she said honestly. "I mean… what better opportunity. And you didn't even want to go into the house."

"Because it would be impossible to resist when we're alone and you're… looking at me like that!"

Sasha blinked. Oh. Okay. That was good, right? That he didn't think he could resist? But then… "Why do you want to resist so bad?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," he said quietly, his voice a low rumble in the half-light of the porch. Then he reached across to take her hand and twine their fingers, resting the back of his palm on her thigh, her hand in his. "Where I come from it's a little different to here," he said quietly. "It's really normal for people to just… to wait until they know they've found the right one, and then they stay together after that. Like, permanently."

Sasha blinked. "They wait for marriage?"

He nodded, staring at their hands. "The fact that I've done this before… it's not normal where I come from."

"So, it's one of those old-fashioned places, I guess? Are they super-religious or something?"

Zev shrugged. "Sort of. But it's more about… It's more about finding the right person. My Dad… he wants me to sort of explore, you know? But I've done that some and… it didn't… I didn't find what the people I grew up with found and it felt kind of… kind of hollow. It made me want to wait and not just… just do whatever, with whoever…" he trailed off and made a face, like he was embarrassed.

Sasha squeezed his hand, her heart swelling at how seriously he took all of this. "That's kind of beautiful in a weird way," she said quietly.

"So, here's the thing, Sash. I want you. I want you more than I've ever wanted anyone else—that's for real. Like what we've got… that doesn't feel hollow to me. So I don't want to mess it up. I think… I think it would be better to wait and see. Because I'd rather wait with you, than do this and lose you. I know it's not the normal way of doing stuff here"

She almost cried. Turning in her seat, she leaned over him, took his broad jaw in her free hand and kissed him, loving the scratch of his shadowing jaw against her cheek.

He gripped her hair in his free hand and held her there, sucking in a deep breath.

When she finally pulled back, they just stared at each other for a long moment. Then she smiled. "I'd rather wait with you than do this and lose you, too," she whispered. All the fear left Zev's eyes and he beamed. She leaned in to kiss him again, but paused just before their lips touched. "And just for the record, you're definitely not normal.. It's a big part of the reason I love you."