She cups her face in her hands and groans. “You’re exactly the right person in the wrong body, wrong circumstance, wrong time.” She lets them fall away and faces me with all the naked longing in the entire freaking world right there for me to read. She’s completely unguarded and so utterly breathtaking that I feel like I’m being wedged in that doorway again. “But if we wait for all those boxes to be right, right, right, we’ll probably be waiting forever. Wasted time and regrets is a pretty garbage mound to take a stand and die on.”
I suck in a breath, warmth cascading over my head as though the box roof truly is leaking or the stars are falling from the sky. I imagine neither cold rain nor a star dropping out of the sky and smashing straight into you would be pleasant sensations, but whatever it is, it feels good.
I can feel it seeping into the crown of my head, trickling down to bathe my shoulders, sweeping through my veins, and pooling right in the center of my chest.
Honestly, it’s been so long since I was truly happy or anything approaching it that the feeling catches me off guard.
I bend over double like I have the world’s worst stomachache.
Amalphia misunderstands. She’s on her hands and knees in an instant, crawling over to me. She cups my face, tilting it up. “Are you okay? Are you having a relapse, or is the shock of this too much? You look like your internal organs are shutting down!”
Her hands on my face feel good. I reach up and bracket them with my own. She gasps, the air hissing out of her like a slow leak from a punctured tire.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, her fingers patting my cheek lightly beneath my hand. It makes a little plopping noise. “I know this is scary for you. You’ve been through the worst of multiple kinds of hell. No one should have to endure what you’ve endured. You don’t know that a relationship can be a safe space.” She laughs humorously. “Then again, neither do I. I want to believe in the love my parents have, though. They’re the reason I haven’t given up entirely. I know it’s possible to fall more and more in love with someone every single day, to change and grow in the same direction. I know it’s possible to be together and to keep each other from harm, to truly care about another person’s happiness.”
“What did you mean when you told Reginald that they even broke your teapots?”
She blinks, her cheeks turning pink. “Nothing. I…it’s nothing.” She studies my face and caves. “Those thugs smashed some teapots that I’d been collecting over the years when they overturned my place, but hey. It’s better than having my bones snapped. I was sad about it at the time, but they were just things. They can be replaced. Half the fun was going on hunts to thrift stores and antique stores to find them anyway.”
Somehow, it fits that, if anything, Amalphia would collect something like that. Also, she’d genuinely take the attitude that even though they meant something to her, they could be replaced, and she could forgive and most past it.
It’s another stark reminder that despite being raised in wealth and surrounded by more money than I could comprehend, my parents weren’t able to raise me to be someone like this woman. They’re certainly nothing like her parents. They haven’t fallen more in love each year. I doubt they were ever in love to begin with. It’s a terrible thought, and I’m not trying to judge them, but I feel their marriage couldn’t have been more than just another business transaction.
“We can…we can go slow. Or…I…I just know I like being here with you. You make my heart do fluttery things that it never has with anyone else. And don’t get me started about the hormonal onslaught. I didn’t even know it was possible to be this attracted to someone without it killing you.” She withdraws her hands gently, and I drop mine. “I’ll be fine, though. My ovaries are all good. I…there’s no pressure here. Goodness.” She looks up and groans. “I’m just going to stop now. Let’s watch the stars. Lovely, computer-generated stars.”
“Thank you for all of this. I’ve never done anything like this in my entire life. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience.” Now isn’t the time to get shy. “I’d like to have more days like this one. Or just boring days. Days that are just ours, for us. I have to warn you, though, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. A lot of soul searching.I’m going to do some things that are going to make a lot of people angry with me. They’ll question my sanity. They’ll think I’m having a midlife crisis. They might say horrible things about you, but I’ll do my best to shelter you. I just want you to have a realistic picture of what you might be getting into.”
“Oh, so it’s worse than the fact that you’re my ex-boyfriend’s dad, and you’re a decade and some older than me?” Her eyes sparkle. It’s amazing that we’ve gotten to the point where we can joke about this.
“I’m going to quit my job.”
She looks poised to laugh before she studies me at a level that’s nearlyhairy eyeball official.“Holy poopers. You’re not joking.”
“No, I’m not. I want to leave the company and do my own thing. I don’t know what that is yet, but I’d like to just be able to breathe. I’d like to do something that makes me feel like I do right now. Just purely happy. I don’t want to say that I’d like to take a chance on us working because taking a chance sounds so wrong. It implies that it would be a mess or there wouldn’t be trust or effort put into it. It sounds lazy and haphazard.”
This is as vulnerable, walls down, and heart open as I have ever been with anyone, ever. I know it’s not some grand, romantic gesture, but judging by the expression on Amalphia’s face, she reads it for exactly what it is. She doesn’t tell me that I’m crazy. That I should reconsider. She believed me about the worst of all this right from the start, which is more than my own parents ever did.
There’s been a string pulling us together right from the start, and I feel it now. It makes my heart hammer, and it makes me believe that the dumbest things I could ever hope for or even dare to say might not be dumb at all.
I’ve made a life out of refusing to be emotional because emotions just lead you straight into stupidity, and that leads youstraight off a cliff edge of trouble that will haunt you for the rest of your days.
“Do you…” I have to pause to catch my breath. “Do you think that’s dumb?”
Amalphia is silent, her eyes huge, but she shakes her head quickly. “No.” Her hand hovers in the air for a second before she gets brave enough to brush a strand of hair from my forehead. She strokes my cheek and runs her fingers through my beard, sighing as if she’s one of those very rare women who actually adores facial hair. “No, I don’t think that’s dumb at all.” Her eyes mist over. “I don’t know what to say. I’m not very good at this.” She bites down on her bottom lip, her nostrils flaring adorably. “Maybe we should watch the stars?”
She slips her hand down, trailing her fingers gently over my shoulder and letting them fall to my wrist. Before she slips her hand into mine, she plays with my fingers, stroking them in a way that shouldn’t have me breathing heavily, but it does.
She spreads out on the floor, looking up.
I mirror her pose.
We’re shoulder to shoulder, and it takes everything in my power not to just lean over and kiss her. Her face is so close. I could slip my nose into the crook of her neck and inhale her scent. I could wrap my hands around her waist and lift her right onto me so she’d straddle my waist. Would she lean forward and kiss me, grinding down on my cock at the same time?
Fuck. The stars. Right.
They’re lovely stars and all, but I can’t stay focused. After a few seconds, my eyes glance over, caressing Amalphia’s side profile. The lights are even prettier as they reflect off her face, highlighting the curve of her cheekbone, the soft slant of her nose, her thick fringe of lashes, and her luminous eyes.
I’ve been all over the world, but have I ever stopped for just a few seconds to look up and appreciate the stars and the infinite nothing and everything that is out there?
