The only thing I really know right now, the only conclusion I came to after the nearly thirteen thousand steps I walked in my living room overnight (according to my watch), is that I’m a fuckingwreckwithout Gem in my life. I need her back.
Which is what brought me here, to her stoop, standing outside the front door, my forehead resting on the warm wooden surface, one forearm braced next to it for support, trying to keep myself from fucking things up with her even further, but unable to stay away for another fucking minute.
I don’t know what’s going on. I just know that when we spent our time together, instead of apart, I was doing a hell of a lot better.
She needs to know that I know I fucked up. She needs to know I need her in my life. And I can only hope to God she still needs me in hers.
Her musical giggle sifts through the wooden door, soft, impossibly innocent and cheery for this early in the morning. Despite her anger toward me last night.
She sounds back to normal again now. The sound of it lifts one side of my mouth into a half smile, until I hear a deeper timbre somewhere in the house as well, the words indistinguishable from here, but the tone unmistakable.
He’shere.
I don’t know about you, but when I don’t sleep, I’m not…at my best, shall we call it. That’s what I’m blaming my flared nostrils on, the surge of jealousy, searing hot through my bloodstream. My lack of sleep.
Can I also use that excuse for whatever I pulled with her last night? Tbh, prolly not, but please don’t bring that up rn, thanks.
The hand that’s braced on the door turns into a fist and pounds on the wood several times, demanding to be heard, for the barriers between us to come down.
By the time the door swings inward, revealingheron the other side of the doorjamb, I’ve lost all semblance of anything remotely sensible I was going to say.
Her eyes darken and narrow at the sight of me on her doorstep. She’s not wearing makeup, the first time I’ve seen her bare-faced in months, and her hair looks adorably sleep-mussed, or worse.
My fist clenches by my side at the sight. I’ll consider that rumpled look from sleep, for all of our sakes. She must be in the middle of getting ready for work, because she’s dressed in an outfit that looks more professional than I’m used to seeing her in on a day off—actually any day, really—and her words from last weekend come back to me at that realization.Until six or sometimes seven on Saturdays.
At least I didn’t wake her up.
“Gem.” My voice sounds tired, cracking on the single word, and I think the fact that it sounded like a plea worked in my favor, because her scowl softens slightly. She angles the door so that it’s nearly closed, hiding me from view, and looks back behind her, inside her townhouse, like she’s checking if the coast is clear, before slipping outside with me.
She doesn’t ask me to move, her demeanor more confident than I’ve ever seen it. She’s owning herself, the space she occupies, unabashedly. Her presence, the way she moves forward without regard for my position near her, has me moving backward to get out of her way, and fast.
Fuck, she’s sexy.
“What are you doing here?” she hisses, her teeth all but clenched. The tense set of her jaw, and the way her hair falls inwaves, just a few inches longer than her chin, highlights her fine jaw and delicate bone structure.
How have I been staring at this face damn near every day for half my life and never seen this girl like this before?
The rawGemmaenergy being unleashed on me right now is making it hard to concentrate on anything but how beautiful she is, how much I’ve missed her. I feel a smile break out on my face, and I hope she doesn’t take it as anything other than relief, appreciation that she hasn’t shut me out entirely.
“I had to see you,” is all I can muster.
Those honeyed cinnamon eyes of hers, like a strong hot toddy, flash dangerously and she crosses her arms in front of her body, covering her small chest in defiance.
Even though she’s pissed at me, even though nothing is how it used to be between us, just beingnearher calms me. Suddenly, the fact that I haven’t slept in over a day feels like nothing. The crushing weight of how badly I’d disappointed her last night is easing, my chest able to take deep breaths again for the first time in twelve hours.
It’s her. She ismagic. She is the cure to everything for me.
I scramble to put my regrets into words for her.
“I made a mistake.”Hah. My voice didn’t even break that time.
The remorse must be written into my features, because she rolls her eyes likeno shit, Stone, and drops her arms down to her sides, her posture showing me she’s willing to hear what I have to say.
When I don’t continue immediately, she lifts a hand to me in a gesture that clearly—with attitude—tells me to go on, so I do.
So sassy, Gem.
I clear my throat and start talking. “I was wrong. We weren’t ready to bring significant others into this. I thought that’s whatwould make this easier for both of us, but clearly, it wasn’t the thing to do.”
