Page 78 of The Intimacy of Finding You

“I’m anxious about it, but I’m also pumped. I’ve missed cooking, honestly. Doing it here at home ain’t the same.”

I smiled, pushing my empty plate back a little. “I know you have. I’m really happy for you, baby.”

He laid his arms on the table, just looking at me with some kind of sparkle in his eyes. I gravitated toward it automatically, finding myself wishing I could fall into it. A spark of light amidst the brown, so warm and gorgeous. “Things really haven’t changed all that much, have they? We’re both workin’ at Fire and Ice. We both love each other. You still don’t like cooking all that much, but you still did it to impress me. We’re back to the way things were before.”

Shaking my head, I placed a hand on his arm. “So much has changed. Nothing much, yet everything at the same time. Like me touching you. Like us living here instead of in that shitty apartment. Like how much closer I feel to you. Everything has changed.”

“Do you wish things had gone differently?”

“Not a chance.”

He tilted his head. “That was a quick answer.”

“It was an easy answer. I wouldn’t change any of this for the world, baby doll. I don’t think we’d be where we are if we hadn’t gone through…” I waved my hand around. “Everything we’ve gone through. Do I want to rewrite the past for you, and kill the ones who failed you? Do I wish Papa were here? Yeah. But I don’t think it’d have been the same.”

He picked up his plate and reached over for mine, standing with them. “You’re right. I think, in the end, this was exactly what was supposed to happen.” He turned, making his way to the kitchen sink. “Let me put the dishes up this time. You can go start Ghostbusters.”

The first movie we’d ever watched together. The same movie that’d become a comfort for him. The same movie I’d watched over a hundred times by now, every time spent thinking of the man I’d missed more than anything in my entire life.

This time, Tobi sat right beside me, curling up into my side with my arm wrapped around his shoulders. He’d turned the lights off, leaving nothing but the TV’s glow to surround us. We were nothing like we’d been back then. We answered to the same names, but we were entirely different people with entirely new love in our hearts.

It was far more intense. Far more fulfilling. It was everything—a nebular explosion in the sky as a new beginning opened up and gave us something entirely new.

Not even halfway through the movie, I realized that the watchful eyes I’d been feeling were Tobi’s. When I turned my head, he didn’t shy away. He was just looking at me. Staring at me. But it was so much more than that.

How could eyes hold so much emotion?

There were rolling fields of daffodils and trees with mockingbirds on their branches, and the sun was shining so bright, and so warm—all I wanted to do was curl up in them. Find a home in them. Love him from his eyes and let him into mine if it meant he could see how much I adored him.

He reached up, cradling my jaw as he pressed our noses together. I rubbed the tip of mine against his, feeling his skin on mine and the warmth of his breath, pretending it was the sun in his eyes.

We didn’t need words. We didn’t need direction. When we kissed, it came easily, and that kiss was proof of everything having a reason. It’d all had a reason. Every sleepless night, every worried Google search, every panic attack, every anxiety attack, every racing thought…

Everything came down to this.

To us.

And I wouldn’t change it for the fucking world.

I held the back of his neck as I moved our kiss deeper, bringing my tongue over his, tasting him at the purest level. I needed him close. Closer. I wanted him to fit inside my heart, so I could keep him there forever. Not because I was scared of losing him, but because I knew I wouldn’t, and there’d never be enough to satisfy my need for him.

He pushed his hand against the back of the couch, using it as leverage to straddle my lap. Our heads clashed together, but that didn’t stop us. No, we didn’t even pause. Instead, Tobi laughed into our kiss, and I took it. I couldn’t get enough of it. His laughter tasted so fucking beautiful, I would’ve destroyed the entire universe to get more.

Of course, I had to ruin it by whimpering the moment he started to kiss from my jaw to my neck, tilting my head to give him all of me. Every inch. Every last molecule. “Tobi, please…”

He pulled away, whispering. “Please, what? What do you need?”

Reaching up, I held the sides of his neck, gazing into the fields of daffodils. “I want…” Shit, my heart was pounding again. “Will you fuck me?”

His eyes widened, his eyebrows raising. His glasses slid down his nose a little as he stared back at me. “You want me to do that?”

“If you’re, um, okay with it.”

“You’re sure?”

I nodded, biting down on my bottom lip.

“Have you ever bottomed before?”