I cried out in pleasure, my voice a surprising high-pitched gasp. And then there was nothing to do but hold on to him until we landed.
The world came apart behind my eyelids. Fireworks and meteor showers and a whole other galaxy of light. He held me just as tightly. His body was rigid and spasming against mine.
And when it was over, we continued to simply hold each other. We had been in each other’s lives since almost the beginning, but never like this. Never in this way until now. And it was a moment I would remember for the rest of my life.
He loved me. He had always loved me.
And these feelings I had been burying for too long could finally be free. I could finally let them out of their box and give them the sun and breath they deserved.
Afterward, after we’d cleaned up and crawled back into bed together, he pulled me close and held me . We didn’t find sleep immediately. Instead, we laughed about all the times the love was so strong between us, yet we both thought it was only one-sided. We talked about the past. And then talked about the future. And never stopped touching.
He was mine.
And I was his.
And it might have always been like this, but now it was real.
eighteen
“It’s been two weeks.Are you ever going to tell Will and Charlie? What about your mom? God, your mom is going to be so happy. She’s probably going to start showing up at your apartment with pregnancy tests.” Claire laughed over my groan and took another big bite of her eggs benedict.
“You are not wrong.” I was simultaneously excited to tell my mom and dreading the whole experience. “Of course, she’ll never stop gloating once this is all out in the open. So that’s reason enough to keep this secret forever.”
Claire had been so busy with finishing school and all the final projects that entailed, and I’d been so distractedcatching upwith Jonah—okay, having so much sex—that this was the first time we sat down to talk about things. It was so good to finally see her. And tell her everything. I felt close to bursting holding this secret inside. I started spilling my guts before we even sat all the way down for a quick mid-week breakfast.
I had been worried that she’d be angry about Jonah and me, as they weren’t each other’s biggest fans. But Jonah had agreed to stop being such a snob about my friendship with Claire. And Claire was thrilled for Jonah and me. Her biggest issue with him, according to her, was that it was annoying how in love with me he was.But she was over that now that it was all out in the open.
“So, what about Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum?” she asked, reaching for another bite of cinnamon roll. Her nose wrinkled as soon as her fork was in her mouth. Our table was littered with pastries from one of the popular breakfast spots in Durham, but none of them were Claire-approved.
“Stop eating it if you don’t like it,” I warned.
She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes community hype is a good thing. And sometimes...” She pushed the cinnamon roll plate farther out of reach. “It’s nothing but lies.”
Steering Claire away from her pastry-expert soapbox, I refocused the conversation, “I don’t know, Claire. It’s been nice, you know? The past couple weeks with Jonah have been... actual bliss. Completely amazing. We’re like couple goals or something and I don’t even feel bad about saying that.”
“Well, you are.” She smiled. “You were already constant fixtures in each other’s lives. Now you get to have sex too. That has to be an upgrade.”
“A major upgrade,” I agreed. “But the good parts of our friendship are still there too. He still texts me all the time. And we still laugh about everything, and tell each other all the small, insignificant details of our days. He’s everything I loved in a friend, and so much more.”
God, Jonah was so much sexier than I ever gave him credit for. And that was saying a lot because I’d already thought he was basically the sexiest man alive before he turned the full scope of his sexy attention on me.
But it was deeper than that. It wasn’t just his sexiness or the sex. It was this soul-deep connection we shared. The way he was there to catch me when I fell, hold me when I needed comfort, listen when I needed to vent, and mix me a good drink at the end of a very long day.
“I have never had this much fun with a guy I was dating, Claire. It’s like we’ve taken all the best parts of our friendship and made them better, sweeter, more intimate.”
I already shared everything with Jonah... but now, there was an extra level of emotional support and concern for all my problems. And he had always relied on me for advice, companionship, and jokes. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t admit out loud that he needed my jokes, but he did. So badly. And now, I could give all of that away without fear of being too much. Or not enough.
“He’s all the things I loved about him in friendship—teasing, attentive, giving. But at a deeper level. Makes me wonder why we didn’t take this next step years ago. What on earth made us wait so long?”
“That’s easy, my friend. Your big brother and their stupid bro-code.”
I looked around at the pastry and egg devestation on the formica table and sighed. “You’re not wrong.”
“So when are you going to tell him?”
By him, she meant Will. “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked, wishing I could ignore the way her question made the swelling happiness I’d found with Jonah deflate. “Never.”
She glanced at her phone, acknowledging the time. We both had places to get to and were squeezing breakfast and a carb coma in as quickly as we could. “Well, as long as you have a well-thought-out plan.” She grinned at me. “I’m so happy for you. Have I told you that yet?”
