Page 125 of Into Pitch

“Yeah, but the makeup sex kind of does its job, doesn’t it?” He teases.

I snort despite myself. “The sex is nice.”

“Yeah, but loving me is better, isn’t it?”

I purse my lips, eyes narrowing on him as I try one last time to come up for some reason as to why this could never work. The short list is easy; I want to kill him, he infuriates me, some days I think he needs to be locked up in a straight jacket.

It’s just… I love him.

And that’s the thing about love. It’s messy and imperfect, and it never comes the way you want it to. It isn’t like they show it to be in the movies or the books. It can’t be wrapped up in a bow inside of a neat little box. It’s never really sated by a happy ending, because I simply believe there’s no such thing.

I think we live for the happy moments in between all the crazy instead. We live for the people who see us and the ones who don’t shy from the gray areas that make up most of what we are.

“Can I kiss you?” He murmurs.

“Fuck, I guess.” I mutter.

He chuckles, reaching out to grab my shirt before tugging me to his chest. “That’s my little monster.”

I scoff, but his mouth falls over my own, silencing any of my protest and doubt.

My arms curl around Sadie’s warm body where it is curled into me on the couch, right where she belongs. Our limbs tangled in the aftermath of us doing highly inappropriate things in an office space.

None of which I regret.

I don’t move, but I’ve learned that moments like this fracture if handled wrong.

I drape my arms along the back of the couch, my fingers resting at the curve of her shoulder blade, tracing absentminded lines that don’t demand anything from her. My office smells like coffee and her, a scent I’d drown this place in if I could get away with it. The lamps low and the city outside muted behind thick glass.

Sadie shifts, pressing her face closer to my throat and the instinct hits hard and fast—violent in its intensity. The urge to cage this moment and to lock the doors, to make decisions she doesn’t have to make anymore.

I clamp down on it, not because I want to, but because I have to.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” she murmurs, voice soft but amused. Like she knows exactly how dangerous that sentence is.

I huff a quiet breath through my nose. “Occupational hazard.”

Her fingers tap off my chest as I look to the ceiling, watching shadows from passing headlights crawl across the plaster. I catalog everything; the rhythm of her breath, the way her weight anchors me, the ache in my chest that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with permanence.

I don’t plan what happens next.

I really fucking don’t, but the words leave my mouth before strategy can catch them.

“Marry me.”

Sadie yanks up so damn hard I have to catch her before she spills onto the floor.

“Christ, Alex. One extreme to the next.” She hisses.

“I know, just—”

“Alex, seriously this is—”

“Yes, I know but I’m serious.” I sigh, cutting her off.

“You just—” she gestures vaguely between us, like the air itself is complicit. “You can’t just say that like you’re ordering coffee.”

“I can and I did,” I reply calmly.