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He scratches his stomach. “Scoot over.”
When I do, he sits down sideways and positions me between his outstretched legs.
“Pillow.”
I hand him one. He sticks it behind his head, wraps me in his arms, and leans back, pulling me down with him, my body wedged between the couch and his skin, my head resting in the nook beneath his shoulder.
He feels good.
He smells good.
It’s so good being with West.
I wish I could explain to my dad—to anyone who thinks I don’t belong with this man—how I feel in moments like this one. Moments when the rightness of the two of us expands inside me, pushing out against the walls of my chest until what I’m experiencing is so much more than I can put in words.
Gratitude. Satisfaction. Contentment.
I don’t know how to say it. There isn’t any way. There’s just this big, blissful feeling that I want to spend the rest of my life in.
West kisses the top of my head. “Pull that blanket up, would you?”
I raise it to cover my shoulders and his stomach, and then from underneath I tuck it in along his side, pushing a few inches of blanket beneath his thigh, his stomach, his upper arm. I like to fuss over him, but not too much. Just a little bit, where he might not notice and get spoiled.
“Sorry I woke you up,” I say.
“S’okay. What’s going on in your brain?”
“Too much, apparently.”
“Yep.” He shifts his shoulders, settling us deeper into the couch. “Tell me.”
“I talked to Paul again today,” I say.
“Remind me who’s Paul?”
“The senator’s aide.”
“Oh, right.”
“So, I don’t know. I was just thinking about it. Not about him, but more about what it’s like when I’m talking to him. I feel like … like there are things I can tell him that no one else is going to. Things he doesn’t get—doesn’t understand properly—but I can change his mind.”
“About revenge porn?”
“For starters, yeah. I think it’s getting so I could change almost anyone’s mind on that, if I had a clear shot at it. If they aren’t, you know, a prejudiced jerk or whatever.”
“I bet you could.”
“And this is going to sound dumb, but I feel a little bit like I was born to do that.”
His reaction is an exhale across the top of my head—a huff of pleasure and amusement. “Maybe you were.”
I twist so I can see his face. “Maybe I was, West.”
His eyes hold mine, steady and calm. There’s no mocking in them.
He runs his hand up and down my back beneath my T-shirt. His palm is warm on my bare skin, but his eyes are warmer. So sure of me.
“He wants me to talk to the media,” I confess.
