AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My mouth went dry, and I didn’t know how to respond. Neither did Emilia; she merely sat back in the booth and ate some fries.
“I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. So, what’s it like living in New York?” The change of subject had us relaxing a little, and soon enough the three of us were talking about life as it was right now and had been all those years ago.
We swapped stories about Gary and Angela, reminiscing about our time together in the house. I came to realize it hadn’t been all bad, and our conversation only reinforced just how fucking lucky I’d been to meet Emilia.
God, my life would have turned out so differently without her. I wouldn’t be a successful businessman, worth millions, if she hadn’t stayed by my side all these years. I placed a kiss on her temple and she smiled at me, squeezing my hand under the table.
We’d been at the bar for several hours when we finally decided to call it a night. We dropped Ty off on the way, as he was staying with an old friend who still lived in Faircross. After promising to keep in touch—we’d already exchanged numbers and emails at the bar—we said goodnight and headed back to our motel.
Ty’s words kept echoing in my head. Why aren’t you together?
Why weren’t we? Good question.
I searched for the answer as we changed out of our funereal attire and into something more comfortable. As we watched a little television to unwind. As we checked our emails to make sure we hadn’t missed anything important. As we brushed our teeth and got ready for bed, changing into our sleepwear.
I came up empty.
I suddenly couldn’t think of a single good reason why Emilia and I weren’t in a romantic relationship. We loved each other more than any other person on the planet. Our lives were so tightly entwined together that we didn’t know how to be ourselves without the other.
One thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want a life if Emilia Lucille Quinn wasn’t in it.
I hugged her tightly before we climbed into our separate beds and turned out the lights.
Sleep was an elusive beast. I was exhausted in every way possible, but my brain would not shut down and let me get some rest. Two words floated around and around in my head.
I had no idea how long I’d been laying there in the dark when I heard her whisper, “You still awake?”
“Yep.”
When I heard the sound of her bedclothes being moved, I turned down my own so she could climb into my bed underneath them with me. I covered us both up and she cuddled into me, her warm breath on my neck and the faint scent of her perfume still lingering.
“Jase?”
“Hmm?”
There was a long pause, and I waited patiently until she spoke again. “I can’t stop thinking about what Ty said.” Although there was nobody else in the room, she was still whispering.
I didn’t even try to pretend that I didn’t know what she was talking about. Instead, I turned onto my side to face her. “Neither can I.”
Her hands came up to rest on my chest, clutching gently at my tee. “I feel like I lied to Ty when he asked why we’re not together, when I said we don’t love each other like that. Because we do.” She paused for a few moments. “Don’t we?”
I brushed her hair back off her face. My eyes had adjusted to the dark by now, and I could see hers in the moonlight that slanted into the room through the small gap where the curtains on the front window didn’t quite meet.
I thought about how to answer her question. “Yes, we do, Em.” I couldn’t help placing a soft kiss on her lips. “Maybe we’ve just been waiting for the right time.” Even as I said the words, they didn’t sound right. We hadn’t been waiting for the right time.
“Or the right place.”
Yes, exactly that. As always, Emilia knew what I was thinking. We’d been waiting for the right place.
We were back in Faircross, the small town in Kansas where we’d first met. Where our relationship had begun all those years ago. So it made perfect sense that this new side of our relationship would also begin here, as though we’d come full circle.
This crappy motel would never have been where I’d have chosen as the location to make love to Emilia for the first time, but this was where we were.
And in some ways, being here stripped us bare. We weren’t surrounded by the opulence of the world we inhabited now, the world we’d created together.
We were where the universe had made our paths cross for the first time. Where we’d just been Jase and Em, two kids searching for the only thing every human being did: love. To love and to be loved.
We leaned toward each other at the same time and our mouths met in a soft, warm kiss. There was no rush on either part; we weren’t going anywhere. We had all night to devote to each other, to explore each other’s bodies and wring as much pleasure as we could before we got back on our private jet the following day and went home to our successful lives.
