He shifted, leaning down to press a soft kiss to my lower stomach, right over where he’d just filled me. Then he kissed higher. Up my abs. Over my chest. To my throat.
He smoothed the hair back from my sweaty forehead, his touch incredibly gentle.
“You okay?” he whispered, searching my eyes. “Did I hurt you? Was the throat too much?”
“No,” I breathed, reaching up to cup his face, my thumb tracing his bottom lip. “It was perfect. You’re perfect.”
Cal let out a long breath, pressing a soft kiss to my nose. “Okay. Good.”
“Mine,” he murmured, burying his face in my neck. “Forever.”
“Yours,” I whispered, floating in the afterglow, feeling fuller and more complete than I ever had in my life. “Forever.”
32
APRIL - THE REED LAND, NORTH CAROLINA / THE ROAD TO SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
Now playing: Out Of The Woods - Taylor Swift
Irolledoverinbed, reaching across the mattress for Cal, expecting to feel his large frame resting behind me and instinctively pull me closer to him in his sleep like he always did. Except I was met with an empty side of the bed and cold sheets.
I sat up immediately, looking for him. The sunlight was barely there, but the fire hues of sunrise were beginning to peek through the curtains. And… coffee? Already?
I pulled myself from the mattress with a sleepy groan, grabbing a pair of my, or maybe Cal’s, pajama pants and slipping them on, then snagging a long sleeve shirt out of the top of my dresser.
My body felt heavy, hardly under my control as I walked down the hallway, trying my hardest to shake away the sleep. I made my way into the kitchen, half expecting to find Cal in there, or at the very least in the living room. But to my surprise, he wasn’t. The front door was wide open, and he was out there, sitting on the steps of the porch, his back to me, a coffee mug next to him.
I went into the kitchen and made a cup of my own, then went out the old screen door. The early morning chill hit me in a vicious wake up call, sending a shiver down my spine as I clung to the warmth of the mug.
Cal turned around as I stepped through the door. His eyes caught mine immediately. The sun was starting to come up more now, illuminating us with just enough light to reveal it: he’d been crying. Even if he wouldn’t admit to it, his eyes gave it away, and so did the faint pink color at the tip of his nose. He wiped at his eyes quickly with the sleeves of his old hoodie, trying to play it all off as if he was just sitting there, but I knew better. I knew him better than that.
“Morning,” I said with a smile as I sat on the stair just above him.
“Morning,” Cal said back, tilting his head up to me, asking for a kiss.
Of course, I leaned down to kiss him, but this wasn’t just a quick peck. Not for Cal. When I leaned in and our lips met, he pulled me closer to him, deepening the kiss. But not in the hungry, sinful way these kisses usually felt. This was gentle. This was more than words could have been for him right now, and I felt it all.
“You okay?” I asked him as we pulled apart, my thumb running across his cheek as I looked into his eyes. The beautiful hazel pools were illuminated by the pinkish colors in the sky above us; they looked more green right now than brown. They always did in the light.
Tears filled Cal’s eyes again, and he didn’t even answer me. He just pulled me into a hug. My nerves jumped. I held him tightly, trying to play it cool, but the anxiety built in my chest. Was he okay? Had I done something? Had Cal maybe decided this wasn’t what he wanted after all?
He held onto me tightly for a moment, and I held him back, planting a gentle kiss to the side of his neck.
“I just can’t believe this is all real,” he said as he pulled back from me, looking into my eyes again.
I smiled softly, realizing the feeling hadn’t truly hit me yet, but I guess for Cal, it just did.
I couldn’t really believe it either. None of this felt real. The last week, the acceptance we were met with in a place I felt like would surely be a war zone… we’d survived. In fact, we’d more than survived. We’d conquered this.
“We did it,” I said as tears of my own threatened to spill out.
I realized as we sat here that I really hadn’t allowed myself to accept the new reality Cal and I had created for ourselves. I couldn’t, because accepting it meant I could lose it, and losing him wasn’t something I could handle a second time. But right here, right now, it was standing at the forefront for me and Cal to see. Here we were, at sunrise, on our front porch, coffee in hand, together. This was it. This was our dream. The dream we’d created together as two twenty-something-year-olds ridiculously in love with each other, praying that maybe one day, our love for one another would be accepted in our world.
And here we were, living that dream. I think twenty-something-year-old Silas and Cal would be proud of us.
“We did,” Cal said, leaning in to kiss me again.
He pulled back, his hand resting on my knee, his gaze drifting out toward the tree line where the sun was breaking.
