Each word pierces me. Tiny, razor sharp.
“I get that.” Or something like it. To me, home is a bittersweet ideal that I can’t begin to believe in. Not for myself, at least, although I see how others might want it. After the accident, Dad made a brand new life for himself. A house, a family. His home, but never mine. I spent as much time as I could at Nana’s. I guess she’s home to me, in some ways. “What about you?” The floor creaks as I ease closer. “What’syourdream?”
“Dream?”
“Your brother had the pub. What did you have?”
“Don’t know, to be honest.” A weird sound comes from him. Not a sigh, but a rough huff of air, lost in the cold. “No point dreaming, is there?”
“But before. You must have imagined something for yourself.”
“I don’t know. What does anyone want? I was a wanker, living the empty life IthoughtI wanted. Driven by some pathetic need to be more, have more, more, more. I know better now.”
“Oh, yeah? What do you know?”
“I know thereisn’tmore. This is it.”
“God, that’s…” Sad, I was going to say, before reconsidering. Is this it? This life. These experiences, these moments? Maybe he’s right. Maybe what matters is who we are and what we’re given and the rat race is pointless and we should be glad to have ourselves. Not to mention the moments, the time, the opportunities we’re given.
Opportunities.
The thought sizzles in the air, against my chilled skin, on my breath.
I take a half step toward him, slowly this time, cautiously. Then my bare foot hits his sneaker and I stub my toe and let out a loud “Ow, crap!” and sort of fall onto him and he catches me and pulls me in and, this time, it’s him doing the hugging. Him with his arms holding me to him with his face pressed to the top of my head.
“Colin.”
He grunts.
“Tonight? This? What’s happening. It’s so…”Miraculous.
I can’t quite work up the courage to say it.
“Fucked?”
“No.No!I mean, getting stuck, yes, but being here. With you, after the animosity between us. It’sreal. Can’t you feel it? You and me, stuck like this, tonight of all nights. It’s… Wait. Don’t laugh.”
“I won’t. Promise.” The R is a little rolled, like maybe his Welsh accent’s coming through more than before.
I don’t mention that he already broke one promise tonight when he got a stiffy earlier because, if I did, I’d be compelled to admit how wet I’d been and how the friction between our bodies did things to my insides and that felt so freaking good that I didn’t mind his erection at all. Hell, I wanted it. I still want it, along with the rest of him. The body and the person inside it. When did that happen?
“This feels fated, Colin,” I force myself to tell him. “Fated and surprising, real and somehowimportant, you know?”
He shakes his head. His arms loosen, but I don’t want that. I want to stay like this, cocooned in his warmth, sharing this thing we’ve broken open and left bruised and bleeding between us. When he drops his arms, I tighten my hold. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he rasps out, voice unrecognizable.
“Don’t let me go. Don’t leave.” Even as I say the words, I recognize their irony. I’m the one who leaves. Me. Every time.
“Listen, I can’t… I promised I wouldn’t… What is happening here? What are we doing? We’re not meant to be here. There’s no such thing as bloody fate. This isn’t fate, it’s attraction. And if we… When you…” He lets out a pained grunt. “You’re so fuckingirresistible, Jules.”
“So don’t resist.”
His “Fuck” is a harsh exhale.
“Kiss me,” I whisper, sounding shaky and desperate and only half as hungry for his touch as I am.
Before my next breath, I’m spun, my back slammed to the wall. The cold surface hardly registers.
