He releases an incredulous laugh. “You rocked your hipsinto my dick about a month ago. You know exactly how attractive I find you.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “It looked… easy. For you not to?—”
“Robyn, it’s been fifteen months, twenty days, and about thirteen hours since we were together.” His voice drops. “It was fucking hard.”
I smirk. “Pretty hard?”
“Really, really hard.” He shifts, brushing the bridge of my foot. I imagine he brushes against my thigh, and goosebumps break down my spine. “Not ripping off your clothes took heroic effort.”
“Heroic,” I echo.
“Don’t mock my celibacy.”
I prop my head on my arm. “So why?”
The pause stretches. “We already tried fucking rather than talking,” he mutters. “I didn’t want to do that again.”
“My hero,” I tease.
He lets out a self-deprecating huff. “Nothing like that, I was more like your zero.” He turns toward me, voice steadier now. “I want to show you I can be better than that.”
“Stand by me forever and kiss away the pain?” I murmur.
“You switched the lyrics.”
“I’m terrible with lyrics.”
“And I’m not joking. I’d go another fifteen months if that’s what it takes.”
I scoff. “You couldn’t stand weekends alone back then, now you’re okay with a never-ending one-hand affair?”
We stare at each other for a long silent beat until it cracks out in a burst of laughter. The mattress shakes with how hard we’re both laughing. When we finally quiet down, Nate’s got more to say.
“I didn’t like myself back then,” he admits. “I carried resentment over coming in second to your career and hatedmyself for it.” His gaze holds mine in the dark. “Now, I like myself, and I’d kill to be second to your career again.”
“You were never second. It’s a different kind of commitment.”
“I know.”
The silence tightens, intimate and sharp. And it’d be easy to keep it tightly hidden inside, but I don’t. “I’m afraid.”
He tightens his fist around the sheet. “That’s real.” He exhales. “This is going to sound real Freudian.”
“Just say it.”
“My mom never wanted a gopher. She wanted a partner. And I wanted to be the man my mom never had. That’s who I had, and who I was.” His voice roughens. “Until my own fear got in the way.”
I can bring the wreckage between us, and he’ll own his part. He’ll lay his mistakes, fears, and excuses bare for me.
“I also…” I say, wanting to do the same. “Should have told you or showed how you made my days lighter.”
“It doesn’t change what I did.”
“Nate.” I lick my lips. “When I gave you that yogurt at the grocery store, your smile took over your entire face. I should have noticed how long it’d been since you’d smiled like that.”
His gaze drops to my lips, but neither of us moves. I’ve been circling this version of Nate for the past few months, and he’s become more than an echo of someone I once knew and couldn’t place. He finally feels real.
I want to reach for him, touch him, and close the space his fear left between us. My own fear is in the way now, this constant whir that I overlooked it before and could again. We savor the restraint, subtly shifting from obligation into choice. We can simmer in this new version of us. Possibilities can be choices too.
