"Okay so." He started slow. "The blue is symbolic. Like water. Because when I'm not with you — when I'm in practice, in class, in a room full of people — I feel like I'm underwater. Like everything is muffled and heavy and I'm just getting through it." A pause. "And then I'm with you and I'm not. Everything just — clears." He held my gaze. "I wanted to do something that felt as big as that. As big as what you are to me. Even if it's cheesy. Especially if it's cheesy, because you deserve cheesy, Rhys, even if you're going to make fun of me for it like an asshole."
I opened my mouth.
"I'm not done." He crossed the room slowly and stopped in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my chin up slightly to hold his stare. He reached out and tucked a piece of hair back from my face, just to have somewhere to put his hands, just tobe touching me. "I love you. I need you to actually hear that. Not as something people say — as the truest thing I know right now. I love the way you are, the way you never shut up about music." His voice dropped. "I love that you show up. Every single day. Even when this place was making it hard, you kept showing up. That's — that's everything to me, Rhys. You're everything to me."
The blue light moved across his face and I looked at him and felt my heart crack open.
"I think," he said, softer now, "that whatever next year looks like — the draft, everything after — I want to figure it out with you. I'm not saying I have a plan. I'm saying I want one. With you in it. I think we can make this work."
I had never let myself think that far. Never considered that Marcus Hale would want real. Something lasting. That he would rearrange his furniture and set up a projector and stand in the middle of it all and tell me I was everything to him. That I could be enough for someone that big.
I choked out a laugh before I could stop it.
"Marcus," I said. "I'm not a fucking girl."
He covered his face with his free hand immediately, shoulders already shaking, embarrassed. "I know that — I've only ever done romantic stuff for girlfriends, so that's what you're getting. I panicked."
"The fake candles—"
"They're romantic—"
"There are so many of them, Marcus, it looks like you're going to sacrifice me—"
"Rhys, I swear to god—" He was fully laughing now, face still in his hand. I grabbed his wrist and pulled it away. Looked at him — properly, completely, at this ridiculous beautiful person standing in the middle of this ridiculous beautiful room he'd made for me — and it settled into my bones.
"I love you, too," I said. I squeezed his hand. "And this—" I gestured at the room, "—is a lot and I will be making fun of you for it forever. But it means everything to me that you tried, baby."
"I mean it," he said. Softer. "This is different. You're different. I don't know what the next couple of years look like but I know I want you with me."
"I want the same," I said. "I want you. However that looks."
He smiled. That one dimple. The deep groove in his left cheek that I had completely lost my mind over. He kissed me tenderly that time. Both hands cradling my face, slow and confident, like a decision being made out loud.
It felt like a promise.
He laid me back onto the blankets and hovered over me, mouth finding my jaw, my neck, the hollow of my throat, and I stared up at the blue light spinning across the ceiling.
"Why does it feel like I'm about to lose my virginity?" I asked.
He dropped his forehead to my collarbone. "Please. Please don't."
"No, genuinely — after I give my innocence to the captain of the hockey team, I hope you take me to prom. I hope you call me the next day. I hope you write me a letter—"
"Rhys—"
"I just have standards, I'm not easy, you should know that about me going in—"
"You are the most annoying person I have ever met in my entire life—"
"I want flowers after. And a text. Not just a text, like a real text where we both express our love, not justhey—"
He kissed me. Hard. Both hands in my hair, pressing me back into the blankets.
I shut up.
His hands slid under my shirt and dragged it over my headand then his mouth was on my chest, my ribs, the line of my stomach, and every coherent thought I had evaporated completely. He took his time — learning every part of me like he had all night and was planning to use every second of it. His mouth traced down my stomach and I exhaled sharply, fingers twisting into his hair, and he looked up at me from under his lashes with this expression that did something dangerous to my heart.
"Still want to talk shit?" he asked.
