Page 176

CHRIS

It was two thirty in the morning. Woofarine was curled up at the end of the bed and Larissa was sleeping next to me. I lay there with my head on the pillow watching her breathing softly in the dim light. I could lean over and kiss her. Tuck the blankets around her, hold her. Tell her how I felt, hear her say it back. The world was exactly as it should be, and upside down at the same time.

Tonight I relinquished every last piece of who I was. My resolve, my conscience, my values. I gave it all up.

What was the right thing anymore? What kind of person was I supposed to be? Who did I owe allegiance to? If everyone was going to condemn me anyway, she was right, what was the point?

If Larissa didn’t want me like I wanted her, I would have been able to live with it. I would have been able to move on with what was left of me after the parts she took, but I could not fucking do this another minute knowing she loved me back, knowing that in trying not to hurt Mike, I was going to hurt her. I could never hurt her. Even if she asked me to.

And I was relieved.

I felt like I’d been fighting anesthesia, trying to stay awake and the dose just kept getting higher and higher and I’d lost the struggle. The part of me that could decide not to be this person was gone.

I would have died for that one kiss in the doorway if that was the price. I kissed her a few steps from the sofa Jesse had just been sitting on, accusing me of that very thing not ten minutes before. And I felt whole with a hole in my chest at the same time.

I wouldn’t be able to share us with the world.

We couldn’t post pictures of us on social media or hold hands in public or be a couple on a double date with our friends. Nobody would celebrate us. Nobody I’d grown up with would come to our engagement party or RSVP to our wedding one day. No one to stand next to me at the altar while she came down the aisle or make a best man speech with stories from when we were kids. It would only be us from this point on. And we would be the bad guys.

If they knew, they’d cheapen it. They’d say we only waited six weeks, they’d accuse us of always having something between us.

And all of it, every last bit of it, would be true.

51

LARISSA

Stop.”

I smirked. “No.”

He shot me a playful look from across the couch and I smiled.

“You keep kicking me and I won’t share a blanket with you anymore,” he said.

I looked back at my book. “I bet you will.”

I burrowed my toes under him again and he set his book on the coffee table and grabbed my ankle. I shrieked and tried to wiggle away, but he climbed over me and pinned me while I laughed.

His eyes focused on my mouth. “Are you going to stop?” he whispered.

“No. My feet are cold.” I stuck my bottom lip out. He bent down, smiling, and drew it softly between his teeth. The nip turned into a kiss and I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of me. My book slid off the sofa and landed on the carpet with a soft thud.

“So let me get this straight…” I whispered. “You’re allowed to bite me but I’m not allowed to kick you.”

I moved my hips against the ridge pressing into my stomach. I felt him smile against my mouth.

“You can kick me, there’s just going to be consequences,” he said.

“Like?”

He sat up and started tickling me.

I giggled. “Okay, okay!”

He stopped and pulled me to him by the thighs and settled between my legs. He ran his lips along my jaw and I closed my eyes until his mouth wandered back up to mine.

“You’re smiling,” I said.