She smiled—small, grateful.
“Will you get the guitar?” she asked.
I shrugged not really feeling it. I still played in secret. For tips and and extra paycheck and still couldn’t tell her.
“Please,” she said. “Let’s just… sit outside. Be boring. Drink wine like we’re eighty.”
I huffed a laugh. Felt guilty.
“Sure.”
We took the bottle out back.
The deck boards still held the day’s heat under my bare feet, warm and forgiving. Sage lit one of those dollar-store candles—vanilla tangled with citronella—and set it between us on the rickety table. The little flame danced, throwing soft gold across her collarbone.
I pulled the old acoustic from the corner, settled it across my knee, and tuned by ear. My fingers felt clumsy at first, joints stiff from too many nights clenched into fists. Then muscle memory took over. Soft chords rolled out—nothing flashy. Just old covers I used to play in shitty bars, half-finished melodies I’d never had the courage to finish. They felt honest tonight.
Sage didn’t speak.
She curled into my side instead, head resting on my shoulder, hair spilling cool against my neck. Every note seemed to matter to her. Every breath I took seemed to matter. She hummed low when she recognized a song, refilled my glass without asking, pressed absent kisses along my jaw like small, wordless promises.
Quiet. Easy. No landmines.
The city murmured far off—tires on wet asphalt, a dog barking three streets over, someone’s screen door slapping shut. Normal life. The kind I’d spent years running from.
And it crashed into me all at once.
This.
This was the thing I’d been chasing without knowing its name.
Not the screaming matches.
Not the wreckage.
Not the frenzied, bruising, world-ending fucks we used to drown in after every fight.
Just this: her warmth seeping into me, the low thrum of strings under my fingers, the candle flickering like it was breathing with us. Nothing left to prove.
I stared into the dark yard and felt the old metaphor rise again, heavier this time.
Magnets. Always pulling, always fighting the pull.
Or the tide—she the water, me the moon. Inevitable. Helpless. When we lined up right, it was fucking magic. When we didn’t, everything drowned.
I didn’t know how to stop the tide.
Didn’t know if you even could.
Later, inside, the bedroom was dim, lit only by the hallway light we never bothered to turn off. No clawing rush tonight. No teeth marks. Just heat—thick, syrupy, pooling low in my gut the second she looked at me like I was already hers.
I kissed her slow, filthy-slow, tongue sliding deep into her mouth like I was claiming every secret she’d ever kept. She met me with a soft, greedy whimper, her tongue curling around mine in long, wet drags until her toes curled hard against my calf and a shiver ripped down her spine. I tasted wine on her, salt, the faint sweetness of her lip balm, and something darker—need that had been simmering all night.
Her hands roamed my chest, palms hot, nails scraping just enough to make my cock twitch against her thigh. I buried my face in her hair, inhaled deep—jasmine, smoke, the musky scent of her arousal already blooming between her legs—and our breaths synced into something primal, slow and ragged.
I eased her back onto the sheets. She parted her thighs for me without a word, knees falling open, pussy already glistening in the low light, swollen and pink and begging. I settled betweenher legs, the head of my cock nudging her slick folds, teasing her entrance until she arched, hips lifting in silent plea.
Then the slide.
