Page 64 of Wild Obsession

“Fair,” I say. “I was thinking that this feels really easy,and that’s kind of weird.”

“Of course you of all people would think of that as weird. Most people would call this normal, you know.”

“I know, but when the hell have either of us ever been normal?”

“I guess we missed the boat on that one pretty early on,” Tim concedes.

“We did, but it’s okay. I like you better weird.”

I tilt his head toward me so I can kiss him, our lips sliding from our greasy meal.

“But really,” Tim says when we part, “it’s okay if this feels weird to you. It is. It’s new for both of us. We’ve never had a chance to do something like this. We tried, but then it seemed like the world was going to get in the way. Not many people get a second chance like this.”

“No, they don’t.”

All the more reason to treasure every second of it. I gaze down at the man who is inexplicably my boyfriend, rubbing my thumb along the freckles scattered across his cheek. People see him as soft. Hell, I saw him as soft. But they’re wrong. Tim has gone through so much, but instead of turning bitter and broken like me, he held onto his belief that the world could be beautiful and kind. That takes far more strength than deeming the universe a lost cause and succumbing to nihilism the way I did.

“Is it weird that this almost feels too easy?” I ask. “Like I’m expecting it to be harder, so I’m constantly bracing forsome sort of twist.”

Tim shakes his head. “No, that’s not weird at all. I get it.”

“You do?”

“Of course. The people who were supposed to protect and care about us failed us. The very first people we were supposed to trust, our parents, rejected us. Of course you’re constantly bracing for disappointment. It’s the first thing you ever learned, and from the first people who were ever supposed to love you. That makes love seem hard and brutal and like a thing you have to constantly earn, but it’s not. I’m trying to tell myself it’s not. I think it’s going to take us both some time, though, and that’s okay. We have time. And we have each other. You have me every single day for the rest of your life, Keannen, and if I have to prove to you every single day that I love you and that that’s never changing no matter what, I’ll do it. Whether you earn it or not, my love isn’t conditional like our parents’ was, and it isn’t going away. For as long as you’ll have me, I’m yours.”

His words stopper my throat like a cork in a wine bottle. His constant barrage of sincerity still gets to me like this. I don’t know what to do with someone who is so perfectly, earnestly himself all the time. Tim can never be anyone or anything but Tim, so even when he says something so sappy, I know every single word is absolute truth.

This stupid, wonderful man is really going to mess up my aloof tough guy thing.

I cup his face and kiss him, deeper, harder, pressing my words against his lips instead of trying to speak them aloud. I’ll work on getting better at the talking part. For now, this is the best answer I’ve got: Our mouths pressed together as our bodies sink onto the sofa. Tim falls onto his back, and I lie there atop him, refusing to part until we’re both breathless. Even then, I merely push myself up on my hands so I can gaze down at him, wonder blooming in my chest as he chuckles at me.

“That’s your answer, huh?” he says. “I give you a heartfelt speech and you pounce on me.”

“That’s my answer,” I say.

I should have a better answer for him, a prettier answer, an answer that’s more than hunger and physicality, but right now, this is what I’ve got. I’m a work in progress, but Tim’s fond smile says he not only knows that, but he’s perfectly okay with it. He takes me as I am, damaged and broken as that is, and I do the same for him.

He reaches up to stroke my cheek. “I guess that’s a fine answer.”

“Fine? It’s just fine?”

“It would be more fine if we were in your bed and not on your couch.”

I don’t need to be told twice. We’re every bit those kids kissing under the bleachers and fumbling around in the backseat of my car. We’re still those confused, scared kids trying to figure it out one sloppy makeout at a time. But as Itug Tim up into the loft, there is one big difference between those early days and how we are now.

No one and nothing will ever interrupt us again.

I throw Tim onto the bed, then strip off my shirt before following him. We have the entire night, we have our entire lives, and nothing in the world will get between us again.

For as long as he’ll have me, I’m his.

Epilogue

Tim

Ten years later...

IT’S WEIRD FOR STAGE lights to feel normal. It’s weird to find nothing amiss when a stadium full of people is screaming at you. It’s weird for the thrill of performing in front of tens of thousands of people to be a day at the office.

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