“It was a little funny,” I protest, still consumed with laughter. “Your face, when I said pool boy. It was priceless.”
He’s shaking his head when I struggle up to sitting and pull on his arms. He comes up my body, and I lean back against the pillows, bringing him with me so we’re snuggling, half of his weight on me. His head is resting high on my chest, but my nipples are easily in reach of his mouth. I kind of wonder how long it’ll take him to realize that.
“I’m sorry. I was only joking. There was no pool boy, but there was pasta.”
Kai makes a grumbling noise of acknowledgment. “What I was eating was better than any pasta.”
I run my fingers through his hair before kissing the top of his head. “Thank you.”
His arms tighten around me as he rolls us so that we’re both on our sides, facing each other. “This is the first time you’ve slept over in my bed.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I tease, even as my heart rate quickens.
“Can you stop teasing for a second, Iz?” His voice is serious, and I nod.
“Of course. Sorry.”
His lips quirk up slightly at the corners. “It’s okay, baby, I love your sense of humour. It’s why things were so good between us. Because we could be goofy and silly together. Everything was fun with you. But…” He trails off, his gaze dropping away. “Something feels different this time. Waking up with you, I mean. I know we did it at the cabin, but having you here, in my apartment? It’s different, y’know?”
I do know. It feels different to me, too, but in a really amazing way. Which is scary. It feels right to be here, waking up with him. But it wasn’t a decision we talked about last night, it just sort of happened. Only now, I’m terrified that Kai is going to say it can’t happen again, or that it’s pushing the line too far and we need to back off on everything.
Summoning my courage, I swallow to clear my throat and ask, “Different how?”
It takes a few seconds for him to answer. A few seconds in which I swear my heart skips about five beats.
“Different, good. But I don’t know what that means, exactly.”
Relief comes on, swift and intense.
“Different good. Yeah. I get that.” My fingers start to trace patterns along his chest. Dipping down to the tattoo over his ribcage, following the line of the numbers etched there. Numbers that only we know the true meaning.
“I like having you here, Isabelle. Wearing my clothes, sleeping in my bed.” He exhales, rolling onto his back and dragging a hand down his face. “I like having you in my life again.”
My heart simultaneously grows in size and cracks in half. I don’t know what to say to that beyond the simplest of answers.
“Me too.”
Our words hang in the air.
There’s so much more I want to say. About how he’s so much more than my college boyfriend, or my current friend. How he’s my safe space, and how being around him again is making me realize how incomplete my life actually is in Italy. How I was fooling myself into believing that was where I belonged, when maybe, all along, I belonged with him.
But the reality is, I have a life there. My dreams, my family, my future, it’s all tied up in a small town in northern Italy. I walked away from my life once before. And it was the hardest thing I ever did. Could I really do it again?
Then again, could I really give up Kai again?
I don’t say any of that to him. I can’t tell him I’m even considering whether I could stay in Vancouver. After last night, I’m even more certain that I have to make a decision about what I’m doing, and fast. He deserves that, at the bare minimum, from me.
Kai leans over and kisses the side of my head before rolling out of bed. “What do you think about waffles for breakfast. With fruit?”
“Sounds good,” I manage to say before flashing him a smile as he stands up and tugs on a pair of shorts. He comes around to my side of the bed and kisses me again.
“Cool. You stay here, I’ll bring you some coffee.”
After breakfast, I let Kai convince me to spend the morning with him before he has to get ready for his game. We go out for a walk, then, back at his apartment, he settles at one end of the couch with his sketchbook and I sit at the other with an e-book on my phone.
It’s blissful.
It’s fairly obvious what Kai’s drawing with the way he keeps glancing over at me. “Am I going to be allowed to see what you’re sketching when you’re done?” I finally ask, setting my phone down.
