Page 69 of Meet Me Back Here

“Your turn,” I say once I’ve caught enough breath to speak, bending one knee so I can try to flip us.

Forrest’s arm wraps around my leg, rubbing my thigh reverently.

“No, I’ve already had my turn,” he mumbles before tipping his head back to look up at me.

Surely he doesn’t mean…

“Wait, did you…?” My question trails off as I watch his shoulders shudder with expended energy.

“Did you think I could watch you come undone like that and not?” Forrest asks with a smile, dragging himself up the bed and wrapping himself around me. “I’ve never seen anything so magnificent in my life.” He sighs against my shoulder before pressing a kiss there.

Oh.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

can something be the same but also different?

In some ways, being with Forrest again feels incredibly familiar. He knows that nothing makes me weaker than when he washes my hair for me—something he’s happy to do when we shower together after he thoroughly destroys me—and he knows the spot to press between my shoulder blades that makes all my tension melt away.

But I can already see there are many new things for me to discover with him. I want to make sure I still know what he likes too. I want to know every time he’s thought of us over the past year and said nothing. I want to tell him all the things I held back because I felt like I hadn’t earned the right to say them.

And apparently there are new things he’s noticed about me too. When I step out of the bathroom, having taken a minute for myself after our shower, I find him sitting in our bed looking like it’s exactly where he belongs. While we’ve been sharing the bed for almost a week now, it was exclusively for sleeping. And—at least on my part—fixating on the fact that Forrest was lying within arm’s reach and trying not to hyperventilate.

But now, everything is much more relaxed, like it should be. Forrest is here, like he should be, a paperback propped on his knee and a glass of water with a bag of cheese puffs waiting for me on my nightstand.

I don’t know where he got my favorite snack, but even with our big dinner earlier, nothing has ever looked tastier… except maybe Forrest, shirtless and in those damn glasses. He only wore them sometimes when we were in college, but I couldn’t be more thankful that his eyesight is now trash because he wears them all the time now.

When we were younger, we were in constant motion, barely giving our bodies enough rest and sustenance for them to function. There were never enough hours in a day for all the things we wanted to see, to do. But now, there’s an ease between us. And there’s room for comfort and care.

Being with my best friend after so long is knowing we have all the time in the world to enjoy every single moment together. This is everything I’ve been waiting for. And I think he feels that too.

When I pull back the sheet to slide in bed beside Forrest, he automatically lifts the arm closest to me, a silent invitation I’m all too happy to accept—but I bring my cheese puffs with me.

Once I’m nestled as close to Forrest as I can be without crawling beneath his skin, I take a look at what he’s reading and scrunch my nose when I realize he’s studying some more.

“Forrest, is this really your post-sex reading material of choice?” I tease, poking him in his side.

“Trust me, I wish it wasn’t.” He holds his place with his finger when he flips the book closed. “And this is between-sex reading material, not post. I just need a little longer than I did when we were nineteen.”

“I’m sure those diagrams will get you right in the mood,” I say in my sultriest voice. “You study too much.”

Forrest frowns like he has been when we talk about these exams. I’ve never asked because he’s never offered, but I can tell something’s off. He said to be my usual self, and my usual self would be nosy as hell, so…

“What’s with the face?” I ask. It comes out harsher than I wanted. “Sorry. I just mean I see you get sad when you talk about them. If you’re trying to hide it, you’re not very good at it. Do you not want to be an architect anymore?”

It certainly didn’t seem like there was any lost passion when we went to the Frank Lloyd Wright house, but I can’t think of what else is going on.

Forrest takes a deep breath, sounding truly drained when he releases it.

“The opposite,” he says, and I can feel a confession coming from the way his eyes slide sideways to me.

“I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones. When I took my first architecture class, I found exactly what I should be doing for the rest of my life, and I’ve loved every single minute in the industry ever since. But I need to pass these damn tests to get my license. And that is a lot of pressure,” he continues.

“But you can pass them. You’re the smartest person I know. You always have been. They’ll probably need to create a new scoring system to account for how well you do.” That last part might be just to make Forrest feel better, but the rest is true. Forrest was valedictorian at our school and always my first stop whenever I struggled with a class, whether he was in that class with me or not. He never once let me down.

“Cam,” Forrest says without laughing at my praise, and I realize something’s wrong. “I already failed part of it. Twice.”

“Oh.” I’m speechless.