AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When he sees my smile, Riggins returns it, pressing his lips to mine, kissing me, and making mefeellike his as his hands bury into my hair.
It is as if everything in the world is going to be okay so long as we’retogether.
“You’ll move in with me,” Riggins says hours later as we lay on a blanket in the grass in our clearing, watching the stars. We went to his apartment before we came here, where I spent a good hour stress cleaning, throwing beer bottles in the recycling from Riggins having the guys over the night before, checking his fridge to see what we had to work with for dinner, before finally, he forced me to stop with kisses on my neck.
It didn’t take long before we were making out on his couch for a good long while, learning each other with this new label but not going much further, even when I pushed for it.
It wasblissful, his lips trailing down my neck, his lips making mine swell with the long, deep kisses.
I always wondered if making out would be awkward, bumbling, uncomfortable. But like everything with Riggs, it was anything but. It’s natural, like it’s what we were always supposed to be doing, like our bodies and our hands and our lips were made for this moment.
Unfortunately, when my hands started to creep around for more, he pulled away, pressed his forehead to mine, and smiled. “Let’s go write under the stars,” he whispered.
The one offer I’ll never turn down, which brings us here.
“What?”
“Tomorrow, we’ll go in when she’s not home, grab your stuff.”
“I don’t—” I start. “You don’t have to, Riggs. I’ll figure something out. I have royalty checks coming in now, thanks to you guys.” And I did, though I didn’t think they would be enough to fully support an apartment and feed and care for myself. Something tells me my mother won’t be allowing me to continue to work at the restaurant under these circumstances. I think she’s hoping I’ll find myself on the streets, homeless and desperate, then finally, after 19 years, break to her will.
“You’re mine. That means I take care of you,” he says, his head turning on the blanket to look at me, and the look there tells me not to argue at all, that I’ll lose whatever argument I’m gearing up for.
Instead, I let out a small smile and nod. “Okay, Riggs.” He smiles, too, and warmth fills me from my belly and out.
“There’s my girl,” he whispers, then presses his lips to mine.
It’s all going to be okay.
I can’t imagine it not when we’re laying under the stars like this when Riggs is this new version of mine, when he’s pressing soft, sweet kisses to my lips.
“I can’t wait to leave here,” I whisper into the night sky.
“Yeah? Where do you want to go?” I laugh.
“Anywhere but here, really. Far away from my mom.”
“From me?”
“What?”
“Far away from me?” he asks, his voice low. I turn my head to look at him and realize he’s already looking at me.
“Of course not. Where you are, I am, Riggs.”
We lay like that, under the stars, him holding my hand, sometimes kissing, for what might be hours before he speaks again.
“When we make it big, when we can live anywhere in the whole world, where do you want to live?”
“What?” I ask with a laugh.
“We’ll always have a house here, in Ashford, if only because this is our place. I want to take our kids here one day. Show them where we fell in love, where it all started. But we’ll have another, wherever you want.”
He’s planning a future.
Our future.
And under the stars like this, the way we’ve always been, the opportunities feel absolutely endless, like we could do and we could be anything we want so long as we speak it into the universe like this.
