When We Were Still Ours: CH. 7

CHAPTER SEVEN: DIRTY BOYS

TRIPP

WHEN I TEXTED AXEL and told him I wanted to meet up, I assumed it would be the park—the familiar damp earth, the quiet understanding of shadows and rules. Instead, he wanted something different. A grimy hotel off the interstate, the kind with flickering fluorescent lights and a lobby that smelled faintly of bleach and old smoke. I told myself I should care. I didn’t.

The room was narrow and anonymous, carpet worn thin, air humming with the low rattle of an overworked unit in the window. Somewhere outside, tires hissed along wet pavement. Inside, there was only heat and motion, the bed creaking in tired protest, the sour-sweet tang of sweat and cheap soap. Axel moved beneath me, restless, breath breaking in short sounds that filled the space. I let my weight settle, let the rhythm take over, letting sensation replace thought the way it always does—no history, no expectations, no consequences that follow me home. Just the blunt insistence of bodies and the relief of not having to be accountable to anyone for a while.

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