Page 139 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

“I was at a red light on the way to my meeting and it hit me that when the clock strikes midnight tonight, you’ll be free to kiss someone else.” His eyes darken in anger. “I’ll spare you the details of how fucking furious that made me, but I thought I should tell you.”

“That you don’t want me kissing anyone else?”

“That I want more time.”

My breath hitches in my throat. He says it simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“How much more time?”

“I don’t know. But I know I’m not ready to let you go yet.”

Thatyet.

It’s jarring, coming at the end of his sentence like a slap. It cuts through the thinly established veneer of happiness and ushers in doubt.

It’s not exactly what I want to hear, but he’s here and isn’t that enough for now?

Nera would say that it’s not, that I’m only setting myself up for more heartbreak, but there is no easy decision here.

Walk away now and try to heal a broken heart, try to get over him when I haven’t been able to for years, or keep going and hope that one day he’ll love me like I love him.

“I thought it was easier to go back to hating me.” I point out, throwing his own words back at him.

He frowns and his hands tighten on my waist like he’s afraid I’m going to step back and out of his arms.

“I never said I wanted easy.”

“What about the rules?”

“Fuck the rules.” He snarls, his jaw setting. “No more rules.”

“None?” I ask, because does he remember that one of those rules was about this being just fun with no feelings?

“None. Just you and me.” He buries his face back into the curve of my neck and I’m sure I hear him say, “I should never have gotten on that plane”, but it’s muffled by the noise in the club.

He kisses a path up my neck, across my jaw and to my ear where he whispers, “Say yes.”

“Just a question.”

His eyes tell me he’s listening as he tips his chin at me to speak.

“When I was living in Hong Kong,” I start, gauging his reaction but I forget who I’m dealing with. He keeps his face carefully impassive. “Did you fly there and come see me?”

He nods.

Such a casual response for an answer that tilts everything I thought I knew onto its axis.

“Why?”

He could tell me that that’s two questions, not one, but he doesn’t. Instead, he replies like it’s the most obvious answer in the world.

“I needed to see you.”

Such a simple response and yet his loaded words unravel years of preconceived notions and assumptions.

He sets me up for a million follow up questions, but I know I won’t get anything more out of him on the subject.

Ultimately, it’s Nera’s own words that help me make the easiest decision.

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