I pick up the other controller. "Harper 'Sunshine' Beaumont - Player 2."
"They gave you a nickname too."
"I can see that. Though I'm not sure 'Sunshine' fits."
"It fits perfectly." Tall and majestic in his collared shirt and immaculate slacks, Victor crosses to me, taking the controller from my hand and setting it down. "You walked into my life and made everything brighter. That's very sunshine-coded."
"That's very cheesy."
"I'm allowed to be cheesy in my own bedroom."
"Are you? Because the’American Psycho’ aesthetic suggests otherwise."
He pulls me against him, and I can feel every inch of him—the solid warmth of his chest, the strength in his arms, the growing hardness pressed against my hip.
"The Christian Bale aesthetic is a lie," he says. "Clearly I'm a man who hoards wedding memorabilia in corners and pretends it doesn't exist."
"Like your feelings."
"Exactly like my feelings."
I laugh, and he kisses me—soft and slow and tasting like the wine from dinner and the scent of his smoky bergamot cologne.
"So," I say against his mouth. "Are you going to explain the cardboard cutout?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't notice that."
"It's life-size, Victor. It's very noticeable."
"Gina thought it was 'adorable.' I thought it was evidence of a mental breakdown."
"And yet you kept it."
"I keep a lot of things I shouldn't."
The words carry weight, and I pull back slightly to look at him.
His gray eyes are darker now, pupils enlarged into endless black holes, and I can see the war happening behind them—the desire fighting with the doubt, the need fighting with the fear.
"Like what?" I ask.
"Like grudges. Like walls. Like the belief that everyone is performing and nothing is real."
"Victor, I’m not sure?—“
"But I'm trying not to keep those things anymore." His hands slide to my waist, fingers slipping just under the hem of my hoodie to find bare skin. "I'm trying to keep different things now."
"Like what?"
"Like you."
The simplicity of it undoes me, and I kiss him again. This time it's not soft or slow. This time it's heat and need and everything I never had with Thomas—something pure and unfiltered and animalistic.
His hands find the hem of my hoodie—his hoodie—and pull it over my head in one smooth motion.
I'm left in the thin tank top I wore underneath, and Victor's eyes darken as they travel down my body.
"You're beautiful," he says, his voice rough.
