Page 69 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“What are you talking about? We’ve been good, right?”

Dalisay hiccups, wiping tears away with her knuckles. “It just sounds like you’re projecting your values onto my family, when that’s not fair. You can’t expect everyone to be like you.”

“I don’t care that your family is conservative or whatever. I care aboutyou. I hate seeing how it’s tearing you up, and I can’t just sit back and take it with a straight face.”

“If you cared about me, you would understand where I’m coming from, why this is so important to me. Why my family is the most important thing.”

“Dalisay.” Evan drops his shoulders. “I don’t know why we’re doing this. We’re from different places, yes, but we’re more than that.”

“You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never uprooted your whole life to live someplace else. I don’t think you’ll ever understand what it’s like being me, being a part of my family.”

“I want to!” Evan says, pleading now. “I want us to be a team! I am on your side!”

“How can we be a team when it feels like I’m always having to apologize for my culture? Like the shoe thing at your parents’ house!”

Evan drops his arms to his side, defeated. “The shoe thing? That’s still bothering you?”

“I felt like such an idiot, that whole time. They thought I was dirty—”

“I’m sorry! I know! They suck! Fuck ’em! But I don’t want you to apologize for anything! I’m the last person you have to explain it to. But I am tryingso hardto understand because this is all coming out now and I don’t know why!”

The tears are flowing now. Dalisay wipes her face and chokes on a sob. She hates what’s happening. It’s like the foundation she’s carefully laid for herself is crumbling beneath her.

Evan runs a hand through his hair. “Why are we even fighting?”

At this point, Dalisay doesn’t even know. All she knows is that she’s hurting. A deep, aching, gnawing pit of loneliness is wrenching its way out of her, whether she wants it to or not.

Evan comes to her again and kneels in front of her. “I’m sorry, okay?” He holds her hands, bowing his head to look into her eyes. “I’m sorry.” He reaches up and lifts her chin, dragging his thumb over her lower lip. She melts under his soft gaze, and the tears that lie heavy in the back of her throat recede.

She kisses him. She wants to forget about everything for a few moments, throw herself entirely into him, disappear under his touch, let her mind go quiet for once. She pulls him toward her, fisting his shirt tightly, and he replies in kind with a soft sigh.

He rises, threading one arm behind her and dragging the other up, tangling his fingers in her hair. It sends shivers down her spine as he nips on her lower lip, and he holds her tightly, as if refusing to let her go. Her heart pounds through her whole body, thumping with heat, and she closes her eyes. She winds her hand under his shirt, desperate to touch his bare skin, feel his stomach and his ribs. Everything else melts away, and all that’s left is Evan, here and now.

She spreads her legs, framing them on either side of Evan’s body, and he pushes her dress up her thighs and squeezes the softest parts of her hips, teasing at her underwear. He stands, half-hunched over her, and she knows they can’t do it here.

“Bedroom,” she says.

He takes her upstairs, his hand never leaving her waist, his lips seemingly finding new spots on her bare skin as they tumble into the bed together. He whips his shirt off, depositing it on the floor, and Dalisay grabs at his shoulders, feeling his muscles flex as he braces himself over her body.

He pulls back, a breath away, and his eyes meet hers, as if he’s trying to read her. “I don’t want this to be makeup sex,” he says. “I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”

“What do you believe in?” she asks, levering her hips against his.

He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes widen ever so slightly, blazing with desire, and he swoops in to press his lips against her neck. She stretches for him, letting his mouth electrify the soft, delicate skin below her ear and her nipples harden as he slides a hand against her breast.

Finally, inches from her ear, he whispers, “You.”

A laugh wrenches itself out of her but even the cheesiest line doesn’t turn her off. She kisses him again and pushes him aside. He topples over, falling onto the mattress.

“That bad?” he asks, grinning.

She straddles him, sitting on his hips, crosses her arms, and pulls her dress over her head. No bra today. Evan’s eyes blaze, and he reaches up and grabs her chest, rising to sit and meet her. He pinches her hard, brown nipples, then cups a breast to his mouth. She arches, letting her head fall back, the feel of his tongue wiping every thought from her mind.

Tomorrow, she can figure it out. Tomorrow she can make everything right. But now, all she wants is Evan.

“I believe in making you feel good,” he says against her chest. His fingers slide down her underwear. “I like making you feel good.”

She pulls herself off him and kicks off her underwear. Evan, too, throws his clothes aside, like they’re running out of time. She lays on her back, and Evan’s hands hold on to her bare skin, grab her hips, and they’re so used to each other, moving with the same goal, and still—even now—when his mouth presses between her thighs, it’s like new. Except now he knows exactly how to please her, every tiny movement that makes her loseherself. She needs this, needs to feel like nothing else matters but this tiny universe where only they exist. And while his tongue works against her, drawing the orgasm out of her, she would give anything to live in this moment forever.

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