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“Do you want to hear something ridiculous?” I didn’t wait for his reply. “I spent half the night angry with you because you didn’t come after me. I’m the one that shut you out.”
“I’m always afraid I’m one move away from losing you for good.” He stretched out his legs and winced as he rubbed feeling back into his thighs. “Can you meet me halfway here? I’m trying like hell to respect your boundaries, let you run the show. But if you need me, come to me. I’m right here, argument or not.”
I planted my hands on the floor. “I need to get to school.”
He nodded, mouth flat as I stood. “I’ll drive you.”
* * *
I staredout the living room window from my favorite chair as a taxi cab with a wreath fixed to the front zoomed past. I was exhausted. The lack of sleep had finally caught up to me, but my mind wouldn’t stop working overtime. Stone hadn’t been able to pick me up from school. At some point on my way home, it occurred to me that meeting him halfway was a continual process, not a step to get past and leave behind.
I’d thought being physically intimate was enough for us to move forward. When he’d climaxed in my mouth, I’d felt victory. I thought I’d won and could simply lay down and be happy with the accomplishment. And I had won, but it was only one step in the arduous climb I had to make. Up ahead loomed an even bigger mountain. If I took the risk, made the ascent, what would it feel like to reach the top of it? Where would Stone and I be as a couple? I couldn’t help but believe we’d be stronger.
I thought I was the only one having to do the climbing, but that wasn’t true. We were on this journey together. Every steep cliff I clung to, he did as well. Every amazing view, we shared. Sometimes I pulled him up, and sometimes he carried me. We had to trust one another if we were going to make it to the summit.
He trusted me implicitly. I was the one with the issues.
The front door clicked closed. Keys landed on the console table with a clang. Boots thudded across the hardwood floors toward the kitchen. I smiled to myself. Everybody looked for me there first.
“Muriella? Darlin’, you home?”
Something clicked in me. The rightness of us wrapped my soul in a protective blanket. My eyes stung, and I blinked a few times to clear my vision. “I’m home.”
He looked tired, as if the day had gotten the best of him, but he was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Slowly, he sauntered across the room, eyes trained on me.
Meet him halfway.
I scrambled from the chair and glided toward him. In the center of the space, we stopped. He stared down at me. I blinked up at him. Then I rolled up on my toes and kissed the corner of his mouth.
His brow furrowed, but he bent and kissed my forehead.
“Hi,” I said shyly.
He brushed a lock of hair from my face. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“Where do you come up with these sayings?”
“One day I’ll show you.” Stone looked toward the built-in bookcases behind me. “That record player you’ve got over there. Does it work?”
I glanced back. “It used to.”
“Let’s pick something out.” He laced his fingers through mine and led me to the shelf jam-packed with records. “You have anything in mind?”
“Not really.”
He put our index fingers on the spines. “Close your eyes.”
I obeyed and we ran our fingers back and forth over the records until I decided to stop.
“Keep your finger right there.”
I didn’t move as he pried the record out of its place. He looked at it and held it up so I could see.
“I was hoping for a little Willie Nelson, but I guess James Taylor will do.”
He slid the vinyl from its cover and dropped the needle on it. Soothing guitar filled the room before James Taylor sang about something in the way she moves.
Stone dropped into my oversized chair by the window and crooked his finger. He propped his feet up on the ottoman, and I crawled into his lap. His arms circled me, hands coming to rest on my stomach. I covered them with my own and leaned my head against his cheek.
