Chapter 9: Breakfast in Bed
Chad surfaced from sleep like a diver hitting cold water—all at once, with a gasp that caught in his throat. The weight was wrong. The sensation was wrong. A warm, yielding pressure settled over his hips, and through the thin fabric of his boxers, a heat and tightness clenched around him that made his whole body stiffen.
His eyes flew open.
The pale pre-dawn light bled around the edges of his blinds, painting the room in grays and blues. It was enough. Enough to see the silhouette of her—the curve of her back, the fall of blonde hair over her shoulders. Enough to see her head bowed, her lips stretched around him, the slick, obscene sound of her mouth working filling the silent room.
He was already hard. Morning wood, sure, but this—this was something else entirely. A fever-dream invasion.
“K—” Her name was a choked syllable. He tried to sit up, but her hand on his chest pushed him back down. Not with force, but with a terrifying certainty.
She released him with a soft, wet pop, her breath hot against his skin. She didn’t look up. Her voice was a raw scrape, vibrating through her body and into his. “Mom texted again. Before the sun came up.” Her hand moved on him, a stroke that was practiced and devastating. “She said… she hopes I’m not letting ‘one bad experience’ shut me down. That I should… put myself back out there. That actions speak louder than words.”
She bent her head again, taking him back into her mouth, deeper this time. Her technique was clumsy, aggressive. It wasn’t pleasure. It was demolition.
Chad’s hands flew to her shoulders, his fingers digging into the soft cotton of her tank top. He could feel the delicate bones beneath. He could feel her trembling. “Stop. Jesus, K, stop.”
She ignored him. Her pace quickened, a punishing rhythm. A sob hitched in her throat, vibrating against him. In the gloom, he saw the wet tracks gleaming on her cheeks. Tears dripped off her chin, mingling with the saliva on his skin.
The contradiction was monstrous. Her body—the sway of her breasts barely contained in the thin fabric, the curve of her ass nestled against his thighs—moved with a graphic, desperate intent. Her face was a mask of shattered glass.
“Actions speak louder,” she muttered again when she came up for air, the words broken. She shifted her weight, her hand guiding him, and then she was sinking down onto him, taking him inside her in one tight, searing drop.
He saw stars. Pure, involuntary sensation ripped through him. She was wet, but it wasn’t arousal. It was a brutal, mechanical readiness. She’d prepared for this.
She began to move, a slow, grinding rock of her hips. Her eyes were open, locked on his, swimming with tears. The lavender scent from her nail polish, left on his dresser days ago, clashed with the musky, gym-sock air of his room.
“Is this the action?” she whispered, her voice trembling with the motion. “Is this loud enough? Is this what ‘putting myself out there’ looks like?” A sharp, choked sound escaped her. “Do I look tempting now, Chad? Do I look like I’ve learned my lesson?”
His mind was a white-hot scramble. Pleasure, shock, and a gut-wrenching protectiveness warred, drowning in a tide of horror. This was a wound. She was fucking a wound open, and she was using him to do it.
He grabbed her hips, stilling her. Her skin was on fire. “Stop. Look at me. Just look at me.”
She stared down, her chest heaving. The tears fell freely now, silent and relentless.
“This isn’t you,” he gritted out, his own voice rough with an arousal he hated, a concern that was eating him alive. “This is whatever poison your mom’s texting you. This is Derek. This is your dad’s fucking flannel shirt. This isn’t you and me.”
“There is no ‘you and me!’” The cry was ripped from her. She tried to move again, but he held her fast, his strength an immovable anchor. “There’s just this! This body! This… this thing everyone has an opinion on! You want it? Here it is!” She shoved at his hands. “Take it. Since everyone else seems to think it’s public property.”
“I don’t want this!” The roar was too loud for the fragile dawn. It echoed off the posters of gods he no longer felt like. He flipped her, a sudden reversal of their positions that had her on her back, pinned beneath him. He was still inside her, a fact that felt grotesque now. He loomed over her, caging her with his arms. “I don’t want this version of you. I want the one who stole my cleats before the championship. I want the one who cried when Old Yeller died. I want my best friend, not a… a ventriloquist’s dummy of my best friend saying her mom’s lines!”
She went still beneath him. The fight drained out of her, leaving a hollow, broken shell. Her gaze slid from his, over to the cracked full-length mirror in the corner. In its fragmented reflection, she could see pieces of them—his broad back straining, her bare legs wrapped around his hips, her own devastated face staring back from a spiderweb of broken glass.
“She’s gone,” K whispered to the reflection. “You keep looking for her in here. In this.” A limp hand gestured between their joined bodies. “She doesn’t live here anymore.”
Chad slowly, carefully, pulled himself out of her. The separation felt more intimate than the coupling. He rolled to the side, lying next to her on the sweat-damp sheets. The room was silent except for their ragged breathing.
He stared at the water stain on his ceiling. “Then who the hell is in here with me right now?”
For a long time, she didn’t answer. He listened to her cry, soft, hopeless sounds that she didn’t bother to smother.
“I don’t know,” she finally said, the words so small they barely existed. “Someone scared. Someone really, really angry. Someone who thinks maybe if she just performs the script perfectly—the pretty girl, the available girl, the brave girl—the feeling of being homesick in her own skin will finally stop.” She turned her head to look at him. Her mascara was wrecked, giving her a raccoon-eyed, childish vulnerability. “Does it stop?”
Chad’s throat closed. He reached out, his thumb wiping at a black smudge under her eye. It just made it worse. “No.”
She nodded, as if she’d expected that answer. “What does?”
“I don’t know that either.” He let his hand rest on the pillow beside her head. “But it’s not this. It’s not letting Derek or your mom or… or me… define the script.”
She closed her eyes. A fresh tear escaped. “I came in here to prove a point. To prove I could control this. To prove I wasn’t a victim.” She let out a shaky breath. “I think I just proved the opposite.”
The sky outside was shifting from gray to a muted periwinkle. A bird began to chirp, ignorantly cheerful.
“What do you need?” Chad asked, the question simple and enormous.
“I need to not feel like a museum exhibit of my own past,” she said, without opening her eyes. “I need to not get texts from my mother rating the attractiveness of guys who treat me like a dirty secret. I need to look in the mirror and not see a problem to be solved.”
He propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at her. “Okay. Then that’s what we do.”
A faint, bewildered frown touched her lips. “We?”
“Yeah. We.” He said it with a certainty he didn’t fully feel, but he willed it into being. “First, we block Derek’s number. On both our phones. He’s a ghost. Second, you text your mom and tell her the topic of Derek, and your body, and your social life, is closed. Permanently. If she sends another ‘handsome’ review, you don’t reply. You just… delete it.”
K opened her eyes. They were red-rimmed and exhausted, but focused on him. “And the mirror?”
Chad looked over at the cracked glass, seeing their fragmented selves repeated in its faulty surface. “We get a new one. Today. We go buy one that isn’t broken.” He looked back at her. “And you stand in front of it. And you figure out who you’re looking at. And I’ll be right there. Not defining it. Just… there.”
She studied his face, searching for the joke, the pity, the ulterior motive. He held still, letting her look. The sexual heat between them had curdled into something else—a stark, shared nakedness that had nothing to do with skin.
Slowly, she pulled the sheet up over her chest, a gesture that seemed more about collecting herself than modesty. “You’d do that?”
“I’m already doing it,” he said. He swung his legs out of bed, the cool air hitting his skin. He found his boxers and stepped into them. He tossed her sleep shorts, which were in a tangled ball on the floor, onto the bed beside her. “Get dressed. We’re going to the home improvement store. They open at six.”
A disbelieving, wet laugh burst from her. “The home improvement store.”
“Yeah. For a mirror. And maybe some paint. Your room’s still that shitty beige the landlord picked.” He walked to the door, pausing. He didn’t look back. “And K? The next action you take… make sure it’s your own words. Not your mom’s. Not mine. Definitely not Derek’s.”
He left the room, closing the door softly behind him, giving her the privacy he should have had. He stood in the hallway, leaning his forehead against the cool wall. His heart was pounding a chaotic rhythm. The smell of her was still on his skin, a tangled mix of lavender and salt and sex.
In his room, he heard the rustle of sheets, the soft pad of her feet on the floor. Then, a sound that unraveled him even more than her tears had—the quiet, steady click of her phone’s keyboard. A single, deliberate message being sent. A boundary, drawn in digital ink.
He pushed off the wall and went to start the coffee, the first concrete action in a day that suddenly had a purpose, fragile and terrifying as a new layer of skin.
The coffee maker sputtered its last gasp as he leaned against the counter. The familiar scents of cheap grounds and old protein powder usually anchored him. Now they just smelled like the before. He stared at the brown liquid dripping into the pot, listening for any sound from the hallway.
Her door clicked open.
Footsteps, soft and hesitant on the linoleum. She appeared in the kitchen entrance, wearing the same sleep shorts and a fresh, oversized hoodie that swallowed her frame. Her hair was pulled back, face scrubbed clean, leaving her looking terribly young. The ghost of last night’s smudged mascara was gone. What remained was just pale exhaustion.
“You weren’t supposed to come out yet,” Chad said, his voice quieter than he intended. “I was bringing you a cup.”
“Couldn’t stay in there,” she murmured. She didn’t look at him, instead studying the ancient, stained linoleum floor. “Smelled like… everything.”
He nodded, understanding. He poured two mugs, sliding one across the counter to her. She took it, her hands wrapping around the ceramic for warmth. They stood in a silence that was neither comfortable nor hostile. It was a spent silence, like the quiet after a storm has passed but before the damage assessment begins.
“I sent the text,” she said into her mug.
“To your mom?”
“To both. Blocked Derek first, like you said. Then told Mom the Derek-and-my-body topic was closed. Said if she brought it up again, I wouldn’t answer.” She took a sip, wincing at the heat or the bitterness. “She replied with a thumbs-up emoji. And a heart.”
Chad snorted, a short, humorless sound. “Progress, I guess.”
“Is it?” Her eyes finally lifted to his. They were clear and terribly direct. “Or is it just moving the goalposts? Next week it’ll be some other guy. Some other ‘handsome’ monster I need to be ‘careful’ with but also ‘put myself out there’ for.”
He had no answer for that. He just held her gaze, letting her see he understood the math. The field was always going to be tilted against her now, in ways he could never fully calculate.
She put her mug down with a decisive clink. The sound was too loud in the quiet apartment. She walked around the counter, stopping directly in front of him. The space between them hummed with a new, uneasy charge.
“You asked what I need,” she said, her voice low. “You gave me a list. Block a number. Send a text. Buy a mirror.” She shook her head slowly. “Those are bandaids. They’re not… armor.”
Before he could process her movement, she closed the final distance. In one fluid motion, she hoisted herself up onto the counter beside the sink, the old Formica creaking under her weight. She was suddenly at his eye level, her knees framing his hips. Her scent—soap and a lingering hint of lavender from his room—wrapped around him.
“K, what are you—”
She reached for the hem of her hoodie, the massive one that had swallowed her whole, and pulled it over her head in a single, swift motion. It landed silently on the floor behind him. She sat before him in just her thin tank top, the morning light from the window outlining every curve, every shuddering breath.
Then she shifted forward, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. Her weight settled onto him, her legs straddling his hips where he stood frozen against the counter. The physical memory of earlier—the heat, the devastating pressure—flooded back, a current under his skin.
But her eyes were different. Not shattered glass. Not performative anger. Just a deep, weary resolve.
“Don’t you get it, dumbass?” she whispered, her voice cracking on the nickname, their old joke now filled with a new, aching weight. “You’re the only man who actually sees me. Who respects the person still in here, even when she’s lost.” Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, not in passion, but in a desperate kind of emphasis. “And I… I like you. It’s messy and screwed up and it terrifies me, but it’s the only real thing I’ve felt in months.”
She searched his face, her brow furrowed as if willing him to understand a complex equation. “My parents,” she continued, the words tumbling out now, raw and unfiltered, “would be thrilled. To call you son-in-law, I mean. All things considered.” A broken, almost hysterical laugh escaped her. “It fixes their narrative. Their kid ends up with the good guy. The protector. The one they already love. It’s a happy ending they can understand.”
She let the statement hang there, absurd and profound. The hum of the refrigerator filled the space her words left behind. Chad’s hands, which had hung limp at his sides, slowly came up to rest on her waist. The touch was automatic, a steadying gesture.
He finally found his voice, rough from disuse. “Is that what this is? Giving them a happy ending?”
“No.” Her answer was immediate, fierce. “This is me choosing my ending. For once.” She leaned her forehead against his, her breath warm on his lips. “The only person whose opinion on this matters is mine. And yours. And I’m so tired of pretending I don’t know what mine is.”
Chad’s mind, usually a field of clear, executable plays, was a swirl of conflicting signals. The warmth of her, the shocking rightness of her weight against him. The ghost of her tears on his sheets. The cracked mirror in his room, reflecting only fragments. Her mother’s thumbs-up emoji. The crude text from Derek now blocked, a digital ghost.
This wasn’t a play. There was no playbook.
His thumbs moved, a slight caress on the fabric over her hips. He felt her shiver.
“The mirror,” he said softly, the words a promise, a lifeline back to the plan they’d made minutes ago.
“Screw the mirror,” she breathed, but there was a smile in it. A real one, fragile at the edges. “Later.”
She closed the last inch between them and kissed him.
It was nothing like the frantic, experimental kiss from before. This was slow. Deliberate. A question and an answer all at once. Her lips were soft, insistent. He met her there, his hands sliding up her back to pull her closer against him. The coffee tasted bitter on their tongues. The linoleum was cold under his bare feet.
When she pulled back, just far enough to see his eyes, her expression was open, unguarded, terrified, and hopeful.
“So?” she asked, the single word holding everything.
Outside, the city was waking up. A car door slammed. Someone shouted a greeting down on the street. The sun, now fully above the horizon, poured through their dusty kitchen window, painting everything in a sharp, clear, golden light.
Chad didn’t speak. He answered by leaning in and kissing her again, deeper this time, his hands framing her face like something infinitely precious. The coffee cooled in its mugs. The forgotten hoodie lay on the floor. The home improvement store wouldn’t open for another hour, and the unbroken mirror could wait.
The home improvement store wouldn’t open for another hour, and the unbroken mirror could wait. The kiss shifted something, a tectonic plate grinding beneath them, reshaping the landscape of the room. It was less a solution and more a mutual surrender to a truth too heavy to keep holding at arm’s length.
When they finally broke apart, breathing each other’s air, the world had sharpened. Dust motes danced in the sunbeam cutting across the floor. The drip of the faulty kitchen faucet counted seconds in the silence.
“Okay,” K whispered, the word a feather landing on a still pond.
“Yeah,” Chad breathed back, his forehead still resting against hers. His hands were still cradling her face, his thumbs tracing the arches of her cheekbones. The gesture was so tender it made her eyes sting.
She slid off the counter, her feet finding the cool linoleum. The space between them felt different now—charged, but with a current they’d finally plugged into. She didn’t retrieve her hoodie. She stood there in her tank top, exposed but not performing.
“I’m starving,” she announced, the mundane words a lifeline back to normalcy. “You burnt the toast yesterday.”
“I did not,” he protested, the familiar rhythm of their bickering a welcome anchor. “You just like your bread basically still dough.”
“It’s called artisanal, you heathen.” She turned to the cupboard, the movement making her hair swing. She pulled out the bread with a decisiveness that had been missing for days. “I’m making eggs. Don’t touch the pan. You cook them into rubber.”
He watched her move, the ordinary ballet of cracking eggs against the bowl’s edge, the sizzle of butter in the skillet. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He leaned against the counter, crossing his arms. “You know, for someone who just kissed me, you’re being pretty hostile about my culinary skills.”
“These are unrelated facts,” she said, not turning around. A small, real smile touched her lips. He could hear it in her voice.
They ate standing up at the counter, elbows brushing. The eggs were perfect, soft and golden. They didn’t talk about Derek, or her mother, or the cracked mirror. They argued about whether the defense could hold against the new rookie quarterback next week. It was safe, familiar ground.
But the new reality thrummed underneath, a bass note they both felt in their ribs. When her phone buzzed with a notification, she flinched, just slightly. It was a weather alert. She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
Chad noticed. He always noticed now. “You good?”
“Getting there,” she said, and meant it.
After they washed the dishes—him washing, her drying, their old routine—the silence settled back, softer this time. The plan to go out, to face the world and buy a mirror, loomed. K stared out the window at the brightening day, her shoulders tensing incrementally.
She turned to him, leaning her hip against the sink. The morning light outlined her, glowing through the thin fabric of her tank top. A shadow of the old defiance flashed in her eyes, but it was mixed with a vulnerable, searching honesty.
“So,” she said, her voice casual but her gaze laser-focused. “That kiss.”
“Yeah?” He mirrored her stance, waiting.
“It wasn’t an experiment this time.” It was a statement, but one seeking confirmation.
“Didn’t feel like one,” he agreed, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
She nodded, once. Then she took a deep breath, as if steeling herself for a plunge. Her hands came up, not to touch him, but to cup the full weight of her own breasts through the soft cotton. She held them, a frank, unvarnished presentation. Her eyes never left his face, watching for the slightest flicker of recoil or predatory glee.
“Aren’t I sexy enough?” she asked, the words blunt, almost challenging. A faint, self-deprecating smirk twisted her lips. “I mean, I know you like blondes with big tits, bro. It’s, like, written in your DNA. The jersey chaser handbook.” The old locker-room slang felt strange in her mouth now, a language from a country she’d been deported from.
Chad didn’t move. He let her hold the pose, let the question hang in the air between them, heavy with all its layers. She wasn’t fishing for a compliment. She was taking inventory, forcing him to see the parts she knew the world saw first.
“You’re gorgeous, K,” he said, his voice low and steady. “You know that. That’s not the question.”
“Then what is?” she pressed, her hands dropping to her sides, the performance over.
“The question is,” he said, pushing off the counter and closing the distance between them in two slow steps, “do you like you?” He didn’t touch her. He just stood there, a solid presence. “Not just… this.” A brief gesture, encompassing her body. “All of it.