He kicks off his shoes and scrubs a hand through his hair.“That’s great,” he says.
There’s something off about him, and now that I’m looking, I catch the strain of his smile.
“Did something happen?”
He flops on the couch next to me, throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling.“I guess ten years was long enough for Sterling to apologize.”
“He was there?”
“Yeah.”He continues to stare in the abyss, and I imagine all the words he isn’t saying filling the spaces between us.
“Do you forgive him?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“But you do.”
“I’ve missed him.I know how ridiculous that sounds.I’d been angry for so long, and I really gave it to him tonight, everything I’d been wanting to say to him for ten years finally out in the open.”
“That must have felt good.”
“You have no idea, and you know what he did?”
I shake my head.
“Stood there and took it.Accepted how shitty he’d been and then told me he wanted to make it right.”
“What do you want?”
A long breath explodes out of him, and he rolls his head over to me.“Is this an interview?”
“Just a conversation between friends.”
His smile is soft.When his gaze dips down to my lips, I don’t dare to breathe, too caught up in the memory of the last time we were this close.I didn’t kiss him then, but I wanted to, and I want to now.Except the timing is terrible.
Lucky lifts a hand to my cheek, and my eyes flutter closed as the rough edges of his fingertips drag lightly over my skin.I feel them everywhere at once and want his hands on me with a ferocity I’ve rarely known.
When I open my eyes, he’s watching me, and I’m once again torn with what to do.
“What do you want?”I ask again, a whisper between us.
“I want a lot of things,” he confesses, a weight behind his words that I can’t help but feel settle against my skin.
He’s torn, and no matter how I feel about him—these burgeoning feelings that I sense are reflected in him—there’s someone else in his heart.
I pull away.
“It’s late,” I say, standing.“I know he hurt you, and maybe that wound is too great to ever heal, but you’ve had a decade of questioning if it could work between you.Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to find out?”
I leave before he can answer, burying myself under my blankets.
* * *
The answer, it turns out, is that I now have a very inconvenient crush on my roommateandhis boyfriend.
Lucky took my advice, visiting Sterling the very next night so they could clear over a decade’s worth of air.Once the fog of old hurt passed, it took no time at all for them to rekindle what they’d started all those years ago.
All while I watch from the sidelines.
