“Not that.” He stalked toward her. Her eyelids fluttered in anticipation as he reached her, but instead of pulling her into his arms, he crouched down, wrapped his arms around her thighs, and threw her over his shoulder with a grunt. She shrieked in surprise, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as he carried her back into the bedroom.
“I’m talking about these,” he said, running one hand up the seam of her stockings, past the stretch of thigh bared at the top, grabbing a rough handful of her ass. “You think it’s funny to show up dressed like this, parading around in front of me all night when you know I can’t do a damn thing about it? When I shouldn’t even be looking at you?”
“Kinda?” He couldn’t see her face, but her voice was breathy in a way he knew was half-amused, half-turned on.
He reached the bed and tossed her down with a soft thump. She grinned, stretching out like a cat, the hem of her dress riding up high enough to flash the garters clipped to the tops of her stockings. Her dress was short but loose, high at the neck, practically a tent, not revealing whatsoever—but as soon as he’d walked into the party and seen the stockings, he’d known what it meant, his mind racing all night about the possibilities of what else she might be wearing underneath it. A secret message just for him.
He felt overheated all of a sudden, stripping off his suit jacket and loosening his tie without taking his eyes off her.
He stood there for a moment, taking her in.
It wasn’t so much about how she looked, though that didn’t hurt. The teasing silhouette of her body under the pooled fabric of her dress, the pristine—for now—crimson slash of herlipstick, color high in her cheeks, hair spread out like a cloud behind her head.
It was how she was looking athim. Soft and open and tender, hungry and satisfied all at once. Better than any fantasy he ever could’ve conjured on his own, because she was real, she was her, and she was his.
He must have paused for too long, because she propped herself up on her elbows. “What?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I’m just really fucking lucky.”
The corners of her mouth curled up. “It isn’t luck.”
“No,” he said, pulling his tie off completely before unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves, her eyes tracking his progress. “I guess it isn’t.”
It may have been luck that brought them together initially—luck, fate, chance, whatever they wanted to call it—but it wasn’t why they were together now.
It was the work they’d done over the past nine years to finally be ready for each other. It was waking up and choosing each other every day: facing the world as one indivisible, united front, no matter the obstacle.
It was love.
Back in San Francisco, in the greenroom after the panel, he’d come dangerously close to losing it—losing her. He wasn’t proud of it. He’d been in a state of shock, fear clouding his ability to think straight. It had taken the sight of her breaking down and bolting out of the room to snap him out of it. Even months later, he was still ashamed of not getting his shit together as soon as he’d seen the look on her face after Walt had confirmed the news.
But all that mattered was that this time—thistime—he’d gone after her.
She wasn’t in the hallway, which meant she hadn’t made itfar. He’d tried the door to the supply closet to his right, finding it unlocked—and Lilah huddled on the floor, sobbing, illuminated by the bare bulb swinging gently above her.
He’d pulled her to her feet and straight into his arms, the two of them clinging wordlessly to each other for a long time, Shane shedding a few tears himself before either of them was calm enough to speak.
“I’m so sorry,” he’d murmured into her hair.
She hiccuped, her voice thick with tears. “No,I’msorry. I’m so embarrassed, this hasn’t happened to me in forever. I hate my fucking brain sometimes.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. I love your fucking brain all the time.” She pulled away enough to look at him, her face bright red, her eyes still shining with tears, and he fought back a smile. “Glad to see you took my note about the snot for this one,” he teased gently.
She barked out a surprised, genuine laugh as he offered her his sleeve to wipe her face. She blinked up at him, suddenly earnest again. “But what are we going to do about the show, though?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “Lilah. You are the love of my life. You made me believe in theconceptof having a love of my life. Fuck the show. All I need is you.”
She’d started crying again, only stopping once his mouth found hers and stayed there. They probably would have kept hiding in that closet for hours if they hadn’t nearly given an unsuspecting custodian a heart attack a few minutes later.
As it turned out, he’d been correct in ways he hadn’t anticipated. It had been Lilah’s idea that he go back to school, suggesting it out of the blue while she was helping him prep for yet another audition he couldn’t have been less excited about. They’d tossed the sides in the recycling bin, Shane laying hishead in her lap as they’d talked through his options. In a way, pursuing psychology was like an extension of the things he enjoyed the most about acting (and bartending, for that matter): listening, connecting, trying his best to understand other people, helping them understand themselves.
It was hard to predict exactly what the future would hold. For now, his schedule had enough flexibility for him to travel to wherever she was, and she could pick and choose her projects around him. But even if that changed down the line, he knew they would find a way to make it work, because there was no other choice. He’d lost her once—almost twice—and that was more than enough for one lifetime.
It had been her idea to fake the breakup, too. He’d wanted to tell the network outright that they didn’t want to do it, testing out the fearless assertiveness he’d learned from her—but she’d persuaded him otherwise. This way, they’d have the added bonus of taking some of the unbearable public scrutiny off them—at least for a while.
They’d have to go public again, sooner or later. They were too old to keep sneaking around like delinquent teenagers. He wasn’t worried about that, though. Now that the show was officially over, interest in them would wane soon enough. In a way, he was even looking forward to it: he could finally gloat in front of the world that, somewhere along the way, he’d done something right, to earn the love of someone so brilliant and beautiful and complicated and strange—someone he both understood completely and was surprised by every day. The woman he’d carried a torch for for almost ten years, whom no one else could hold a candle to.
But for now, he could still be selfish. Enjoy having her all to himself.
