Chapter Text
Oddly enough, you noticed from how much he wasn’t touching you. Or- not letting you touch him.
The last few weeks or so, every touch of your boyfriend’s skin had resulted in a twitch. A little jump. Goosebumps up his muscled arm, and a redness to his face, before he pulled back and paired an apology with a nervous smile. Kisses had been brief, hugs even briefer, and the other day he declined your offer to hold hands. Cove Holden, the man people sometimes had to yank away from you, turned down holding hands! Of all things!
Your dalliances to third base had only started a few months ago, and those stopped too; Cove had suddenly become busy every time you mentioned you had a night free of work. And all of this, the touching, the physical intimacy, if he truly didn’t want it anymore, that was perfectly fine to you! Your boyfriend didn’t need to touch you for you to love him. Cove was yours, always, unconditionally. It’s just… it didn’t feel right.
The years of building trust, communication, and understanding between you two didn't just go away. Cove would’ve talked to you. And right now, he wasn’t talking at all.
Laying down in your bed, looking at your ceiling, you brought your fingernail to your mouth. A bad habit, but whatever. You needed to think. Or- not think, really, just remember something Cove had said a few months ago. This knee-jerk reaction to being so close to you felt familiar- so familiar, in fact, that you could almost feel the course sand and sound of the waves as the moment played back in your mind,
“It’s… it’s too much because it’s not enough. And that makes me nervous.”
You started to feel nervous too. That bubbling, sparkly kind of nervous that made your cheeks pink. Even with the summer sun nearly set behind you in your bedroom window, the warmth that suddenly swirled within you never left your body. It grew, like a fever. You twisted to lay on your side and eyed your phone, a finger reaching out to trace over the dolphin phone charm Cove had bought you.
If what the two of you were doing now wasn’t enough… what was?
Your legs twitched together instinctively. You knew what was.
You ignored the goosebumps trailing your arms as you grabbed your phone and pulled Cove’s contact up. The words “can you come over after you get off work?” were tapped and sent before you could convince yourself to stop. Cove must’ve been on his break, since the three dots and the reply of “yeah sure” were sent back before you even set your phone back down.
The moments leading up to his arrival were a blur. In the time you waited, all you could register were a weightlessness to your limbs, bubbly air tickling your lungs, and a heartbeat much lower than it should be.
You snapped back to reality once you heard the front door open, with hello’s and welcoming chatter from your moms filling the downstairs living room. Cove had gone for the acceptable entrance, and not his usual sneak-in through your bedroom window, likely assuming this was a casual hangout and not a long night you two had to hide. And he was right, partially. Hangout, yeah. Casual? You doubted it.
As the stairs leading up to your room creaked under Cove’s weight, you wracked your brain on how to do this… Should you just come right out with it? ‘Hey Cove, you’ve been acting weird lately, is it because you wanna FUCK? Have you not been touching me because it makes you HORNY? FOR SEX?’ You didn’t have time to cringe at yourself as your door opened,
“Hey.” Cove smiled as he walked in, and part of you hated how quickly that smile could melt your worries away. How were you supposed to drown yourself in your own teenage hormonal hell when he looked like that? It was unfair. But your boyfriend remained ever unaware as he set down his bag by the door, and sat beside you on the bed. He hadn’t even stopped at home to change. You looked at the cute apron donning the cafe logo, and the name tag pinned to the top of it. It was easier to look at than his face, so that’s where your eyes stayed. Cove continued,
“Sorry it took me a while. They were going back and forth about the schedule again- took me forever to actually clock out.” His smile perked, “Did you wanna do something?”
‘You, maybe?’ was what ran through your head, but you ignored that.
“Uh- no. I just kinda… wanted to talk about something.” Your fingers fidgeted with the clasp of your necklace, which had migrated to the front of your neck, “N’ it would’ve been weird over the phone.”
“Oh.”
It was his ‘surprised but concerned’ ‘Oh’. You knew his smile fell without having to look. He shifted in his seat, and you felt the weight of it against the springs of your bed.
“I… that’s okay. I can talk.” His tone was sweet, even if nervous, “What’s wrong?”
You finally looked up. Strands of sea-foam green hair shifted over his forehead as he scooched closer, one arm on the mattress near you, and you noticed the taut muscles of his arm as he leaned into it. He smelled like warm food and the air freshener of his car. He had that cute fold in the middle of his eyebrows that he always got when he was worried. He was so pretty. He was the prettiest boy in the whole wide world.
“…Lay down with me.” Your request surprised the both of you. But you just wanted to test it one more time, to make sure you weren’t imaging things. The surprise was more obvious on Cove, however, with his raised brow and blink of his eyes. A small dusting of pink gathered on his cheeks,
“Are you, uh,” his blue eyes glanced at the door and then back at you, “are you sure? I-I mean, your Moms… y’know.”
You managed a smile, a hand patting the space beside you,
“Humor me.”
He did. You weren’t sure what was different, maybe he could feel the shift in the air too, but he didn’t make an excuse like he had been doing, which surprised you. Though his body was tepid and stiff, he indulged you and laid beside you on the bed. He didn’t jump up to leave.
You didn’t have your main room light on, only the soft glow of the lamp next to you, and the fuzzy yellows illuminated your outlines in the following silence. You wanted to speak, Cove could see that much and looked at you with anticipation, but… shit, how did you two manage this before? It seemed so much easier then, that night on the beach; just a quick awkward talk and then you were walking back to his house to fool around. You’d fooled around plenty of times after that. Progressing to that next big step should’ve been natural, and yet here you were, biting your lip, feeling stupid, and you were probably reading too far into it anyway, and Cove wanted nothing of the sort, and you were just some weird horny pervert that couldn’t take the hint, and-
“This is about me, isn’t it?”
His question cut through your thoughts in an instant. And, just as fast, your boyfriend’s words came running out of him faster than you could address them,
“I’m so sorry. I mean- of course you’d notice, you’re- you’re you! And I’m me.”
Cove shot up, a hand pushing back his hair,
“I’ve probably looked like such a jerk- I was being a jerk- and I should’ve talked to you, like a mature adult- like you’re about to do right now. But I didn’t want you to see me like that again, all overwhelmed, not after I just got over it, and I just wanted extra time to… to think and research and make sure. But I-“
“Cove.”
“I like touching you, I like touching you like that, and I know you like it too, and I shouldn’t have kept that from you just because I was overthinking it, and I-“
“Cove!”
He stopped. The adrenaline that had fueled him to confess like that was clearly still pumping, but his mouth was closed. His eyes were wide, face red, and the hand not in his hair shook. It never failed to amaze you that a man of his stature could turn himself so pitiful. The sight was so sad that you almost felt guilty for the warm relief that washed over you.
He did want you. Fully. In the complete sense of the word. He wanted to go further than your hands down his jeans and his mouth on your most sensitive folds of skin, as wonderful as those always were. And that want was so strong, that it reverted him back to that scared teen boy that couldn’t even sleep in the same bed as you. The same boy that couldn’t kiss you for longer than a second because it made him too ‘hot’. He was so cute. He was so, so cute, and your goofy grin was impossible to hide.
“…Research?”
Cove stammered. You weren’t sure if he was embarrassed that he mentioned that, or because that was the only part you responded to.
“It- well- yeah. I didn’t have to look up how it works, obviously, but I mean, it’s different. So there’s different things to… know. And. Uh. Learn.” His face fell into his hands, with a mumbled “Oh my god….” quick to follow.
He was so cute that you wanted to grab him in your hands and squeeze till he popped. The only thing that felt like an equal substitute was sitting up yourself to wrap your hands around his, and gently pry them from his burning face. Your boyfriend’s big, watery blue eyes looked up, pitiful and sad, and you pushed your lips onto his. Cove stilled for just a moment, before you felt his muscles relax. Words weren’t always a solution for him; but your kisses always made sense. Always. Even as you first pulled away, he leaned forward to steal a few more. It was only when you felt he was satisfied that you spoke again,
“…I want that too, Cove. I’m ready. As long as you do, too.”
“I do!”
His face filled with color again at just how quickly he said that. He was quick to continue too,
“I- I do, yeah. I trust you. And I love you, and…” his words trailed off, followed by a shaky laugh, “I mean… I really want to… feel that, with you. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”
“Clearly.”
Cove’s nose scrunched at you, a faux-offended expression,
“Well now I’m rethinking it.”
“No you’re not.”
He smirked,
“…No, I’m not.”
There was only one person in the world that could both melt your heart and light a spark in your belly with just three words. And he was right there in front of you, his smile turned confident, and his fingers rubbing over the ones that still held his own. You had never been more sure that he was the one you wanted to do this with. He was the only one you could trust with your body, and mind, and heart with, and that heartbeat from before thumped hard and low in your belly knowing that Cove felt that way about you. You looked at each other now, eyes half-lidded, the promise made for more already filling your brains with heated possibilities.
…the look only lasted a moment before Cove flipped on it completely,
“…Not tonight, right?”
“Oh-“ You laughed, “No- Fuck no. My moms are gonna be home all night and you said your dad is helping you pack again tonight-“
“Yeah- okay- he is, yeah so- yeah. Okay. Good.” He stammered, laughing dryly and patting your arm. Cove’s apartment-hunting had been successful, so he and his father had been hard at work getting his childhood bedroom packed into a reasonable amount of boxes. Not the best place for poking at each other’s virginities right now. Cove cleared his throat,
“Not ‘good’, like, good it’s not happening tonight, but ‘good’ like… I’m not… I’d need to buy things first. For it.”
“Oh. Yeah. That’s- that’s important.”
“Mhm.”
“Yeah.”
The silence returned. Did other people flounder between sexual tension and bumbling awkwardness like this, or were you just particularly pathetic? You didn’t get the chance to answer your own question before Cove gave your arm a comforting squeeze, and you looked to him, his face a similar comfort.
“Again, I’m really sorry I was being weird about it. I’ll get better at this, I swear.”
You shrugged, a small smile on your face,
“I kinda like when you’re weird about it.”
Cove grinned, and he kissed you.
The two of you took some time to clarify some things: you both didn’t want to plan an exact time and day, so you wouldn’t stress out about it, so you both agreed on ‘whenever we’re both not swamped with work and life stuff, and whenever the time is right’. You were sure it’d come naturally. Cove agreed to get the necessities- always the gentleman. And, most importantly, you both promised: if either of us changes our mind, we’ll say so, and then it’s off. No questions asked.
Once Cove got his fill of sweet goodbyes, I love you’s, and kisses (always so clingy, just how you liked him to be), he got his bag and departed with a gentle “See you tomorrow”. After the click shut of your bedroom door, and the following steps down the stairs, you fell back onto the bed. The empty air left by Cove’s absence must’ve been heavy on your chest, because suddenly, all you could do was stay on your back and look at the white of your ceiling. Your head felt light, and your stomach felt empty, despite dinner having been only moments earlier.
Oh. You were nervous. That’s what that was.
You grew up in a healthy environment, an educated one; you knew this didn’t have to change you. Virginities were made-up things at the end of the day. But… how could you not think about it? Even if you were both very well acquainted with each others naked bodies at this point, this was different. It meant something. You and Cove would always remember your first date, first dance, first kiss- you’d look back on this too. You wanted it to be nice to remember- for the both of you.
As your hands wandered subconsciously over your body, suddenly insecure again, you wondered if Cove was feeling the same way. Nervous, light-headed, a weird version of excited… but he had such a wave of confidence before, when you took this last step of intimacy. Maybe he was doing much better than you. Maybe he couldn’t be more sure of anything else in his life than this.
…No, you doubted that. If anything, as your nerves lit aflame and kept you warm throughout the night, you could at least take comfort in knowing that the one you loved was probably freaking out just as much as you.
Maybe even more.
….Probably even more.