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“Thanks, Elowyn. For everything. You’re the one who pushed me to finally work things out with her and set some healthy boundaries. I wouldn’t have been able to talk to her about it at all if I hadn’t gotten to know you. I don’t think I would’ve respected myself enough.”
“Speaking of self-respect.” She leans tighter against me, pulling my arm around her in a hug. “I just told my family at lunch that I don’t want to be a pharmacist.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one who did some soul-searching during our time apart. It makes me beyond happy to imagine that I could inspire her just as she inspired me. I only hope her family took things better than my mom did. “How’d that go?”
“I shared your suggestion about hiring an outside pharmacist. And they agreed.” She beams up at me with so much excitement, I think I might go blind. “I’m actually going to get to live my dream.”
Relieved doesn’t begin to cover it. Elowyn is finally going to do things on her own terms. All she needed was the tiniest push in the right direction, and it was my idea that got the ball rolling. Knowing that I could be such a force for good in her life makes remembering the other night hurt that much worse. How could I have been so stupid?
“I’m sorry for abandoning you that night with Jesse.” Just saying it makes me relive it. As cowardly as it was, I’m lucky I never came out and saw her face. Just the sound of her voice out there alone was enough to shatter my resolve. Then I heard her sobbing for hours through the paper-thin walls. It broke my heart until I wondered why I ever thought keeping her at arm’s length was good for either of us. “I was in a bad place and didn’t want to let you see me like that.”
It’s a terrible justification, and if anything had happened to her, I never would’ve recovered. I’m ashamed enough that I find it hard to look at her, picking at a hangnail along the side of my thumb instead.
Her eyes narrow. “I understand, and even though there are some things I’ll always need to handle on my own, you can’t shut me out. If we have problems or challenges, we need to face them. Together. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for saying mean things.” I shake my head, amazed at the idea that she would be the one apologizing right now. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make things up to her, even if she doesn’t think I have to. And besides, every single thing she said, I had coming. The knot in my stomach begins to unwind. “You spoke the truth. Especially about showing you who I am. I realized I don’t want to be that guy.” “So.” She snuggles against me, burying her head into my chest. “What are we going to do about this?”
Taking a strand of her hair between my fingers, I consider my words carefully. It’s not every day I get a chance like this. My words need to come out right. “I want to be with you. I want to be your person. Always.” “I want you to be my person, too,” she says, before planting a soft kiss on the back of my hand. “Now what?” “I don’t know about you, but I’m really hungry.” My stomach rumbles in agreement, underlining my statement. “It’s been weird since the fire, and I don’t think I’ve been eating enough. Do you want to go get something?” “I’m hungry, too, now that you mention it.” Shrugging my arm from her shoulders, she stretches as she gets off the couch, heading toward the kitchen with a smile. “And I think I have just the thing here, actually.”
I wait until I hear clinking sounds coming from the fridge before I get curious enough to follow her in. On the counter is a loaf of bread and a pack of American cheese, next to a can of tomato soup and a bottle of sparkling wine.
“I don’t have any nice glasses, so these will have to do.” Reaching into the cabinet above the stove, she pulls out two mason jars and rinses them in the sink before drying them with a hand towel.
“They’re perfect.” Reaching behind her, I work on opening the wine. After a few turns in the palm of my hand, the cork pops out with a dull thud. “Why did you have this on hand? Celebrating anything in particular?”
“I bought it on a whim when I signed that contract. But it never really felt like the right time to drink it. Now it does.”
Pouring two generous glasses, I hand one to Elowyn and tap them together. “To the right time.”
“To the right time,” she repeats.
Dinner comes together quickly because we take turns buttering bread and flipping things in the pan. It feels so nice having come full circle, from the first time I came over here to now. It isn’t the best wine, and maybe it isn’t the best pairing for tomato soup from a can, but I wouldn’t trade it for a Michelin-starred meal. By the time we sit down to eat, we’re more than a little tipsy, stealing bites from each other’s plates and having mock sword fights with our spoons.
Everything feels so easy now between us. I guess we were just living too much in the past and in other people’s expectations of us, making it harder than it had to be.
While I’m washing the dishes, she can’t seem to take her hands off of me, to the point where it makes completing my task more than a little difficult. Finally, I give up, and in a fit of childish annoyance, I take the faucet hose and spray her with it. Elowyn screams, and for a second my heart stops, wondering if I’ve gone too far.
Then, she breaks out into a fit of giggles so hard she snorts, taking my moment of shock to grab the hose from my hand and spray me right back.
“Oh, that’s it,” I grumble, turning off the water and reaching toward her. She dodges my grasp, running for the couch instead. I follow her at a clip, and before I know it, I’m tangled on top of her on the couch, limbs jumbled up so badly I can’t tell where I end and she begins. Our shirts are soaked, sticking to our skin, and I find mine particularly hard to peel off. It sticks to my hair, sending the strands in twelve different directions.
You ran from me,” I growl in the shell of her ear. “That’s bad. Very, very bad.”
In response, she wiggles her ass cheeks against me.
“You know what happens when you run and get caught?” My hand reaches around and pinches one of her swollen nipples. Seems she’s as into this as I am. New kink unlocked.
“Wh… what?” Another wiggle of her ass about sends me.
Another pinch. “You get punished.”
“Do that again,” she demands. “I liked it.”
Her other nipple gets the same treatment. Then I take my other hand and snake it around her hip so I can tuck it inside the waistband of her jeans. “What else do you like?”
I can’t see her face, but I can hear the little pants of her breath. “I like to feel wanted. Like there’s no other woman in the world you’d rather be here with.”
“There isn’t.” My molars click together as I clench my jaw. “Am I not doing a good enough job proving to you how much I fucking want you, Elowyn? You’re all I think about. I want to protect you and take care of you and love you forever.”
Her breath comes out in tiny pants. “Then show me. Put your hand between my legs, Weston. Fuck me with your fingers.”
