Epilogue
Bri
One Year Later
I will never get used to the New York winters, especially the bone-deep chill I get at night in this drafty apartment. I’ll never get used to waking up without Liem either. He should still be here with me. But he’s not.
The clock next to me reads 5:45. How am I functioning before 7:00 a.m.? Why am I awake at all if I don’t have to get up to take care of someone else? I should be sleeping.
So should he.
“Liem?” I whine, still shaking off sleep.
He appears in the doorway, shirtless, sweatpants hanging seductively low, wearing his sluttiest glasses. He greets me with a gentle voice and handsome smile. “Hey.”
With a pout, I complain, “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”
“Not even to make you breakfast?”
I realize my error. “Oh. I guess I’ll let it slide this time.”
He chuckles, coming back to bed, moving under the covers to lay between my legs, his head on my chest. Touching his soft curls, I breathe easier.
“What did you make?” I ask.
“I’m prepped for chili eggs on rice and fresh mango juice whenever you wake up.”
I hum, looking forward to my favorite breakfast but not so soon. “Why are you awake so early?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“After everything we did last night?” I ask incredulously.
I’m not sure what got into him, but he came home hot and ready. He’s been this way all week. Nervous energy over a big project coming up at work? Anxious about the holiday? I’m not sure, but I enjoy him working out his feelings on me.
He leans up onto an elbow and peers down at me. “Want to go again? Or have you had enough of me?”
I brush my hands over his hair for one more touch. “I can never get enough of you.”
He melts at my words, leaning down to press a lingering kiss to my lips. His hand slips into the front of my panties, finding my favorite spot as if he owns a map. “Promise?”
With only a tease of his fingers inside me, he has me melting, blushing, completely smitten. “You should probably do all you can to prove me wrong.”
~
If you’d asked me last year if I would ever come back to this restaurant, I would have said hell no, but here I am, standing on the curb,staring through the gate of the enclosed patio, trying to remember that dinner. I thought my life was ending, when really it was just beginning.
I never expected to become family with the couple breaking up at the next table, but here I am, waiting for Liem on the corner with Natalie.
The amount of time we spend together, you’d think we were a polycule or something. I love hanging out with Natalie, talking about her work drama, watching art films with the bougie imported snacks she gets from the market near her apartment. But now she’s taking my tiny bestie to Seattle for Lunar New Year while Junie and May fly here to spend it with us.
She got a work call and was blabbing about source confidentiality and ethics for several minutes before I looked up and recognized the building behind us.What an ugly place for life to drop a fine-ass piece of man in my lap.
“Sorry.” Natalie sighs. “People are horrible, and I hate them.”
“Ooh, same.”
She tucks her phone away in her bag and takes the bouquet of red and yellow flowers back from me. “I’m so ready to be done with work, you have no idea.”
