My Book Boyfriend: Cross Sugarman

It's My Book Boyfriend time! This is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely Missie at The Unread Reader, focusing on fictional boys that we wish were not so fictional. This week I've chosen Cross Sugarman from Prep by Curtis Sittenfield. OK, so he's a D-grade douche, but hey, he's freaking hot.* He's the star basketballer you crush on in high school but never get (except Lee does kinda get him, but they both do stupid things and it all gets kinda awkward). So he's not so much My Book Boyfriend as My Book Boy-I'd-Totally-Bang.

*There's a 90 per cent chance I chose him because to me he looks like Zac Efron, and I wanted to post shirtless pics.

Swoon-worthy Quotes

"The reality of Cross before me was jarring: his tallness, his pale skin and cropped brown hair, his blue eyes, which seemed to contain both intelligence and boredom... Cross Sugarman was the best-looking boy I had ever sat so close to. And this fact was both thrilling and mortifying."

"His hand cupped my shoulder, and there was the slightest pull, a pull toward him. I gave into it. My body fell against his: my leg pressed to his leg, my arm filling the hollow between us, the top of my head just below his collarbone... He touched my hair, first so briefly that it felt accidental; then his fingers raked through and started over again, and every so often, he rubbed the back of my neck with his thumb. My whole body was hot liquid; I felt beholden to him, and painfully happy."

"'I like your bed,' he said. How had this happened? Why was he here? And what if I did something wrong and he left? 'Except,' he added, 'it’s kind of hot. Hang on.' He pushed back the covers, raised his torso as if doing a sit-up, crossed his arms, lifted his sweater and T-shirt over his head, and tossed them away. 'There. Much better.' When he lay back down and pulled up the covers again, relief washed over me - I’d been afraid he was leaving altogether, but now (his shirt was off!) it seemed he was settling in."

"That was when, not unlike the way he had that rainy evening in the taxi three years before, he began to stroke my hair. He set his fingers against the top of my forehead and ran them back, smoothing out my hair against the pillow, then set his fingers against my forehead again. Over and over, back through my hair, the glide of his fingertips - I think that maybe nothing else in my life ever felt that purely, uncomplicatedly good. I couldn’t speak because I was afraid if I did, I might start crying, or he might stop doing it. I shut my eyes. After a long time, he said, 'You have nice hair. It’s really soft.' He ran his knuckles along the line of my jaw, over my lips. 'Are you awake?' 'Sort of,' I murmured. It was an effort to speak. 'Can I kiss you?'"