Page 63 of Our Hearts Knew Better

Her chewing pauses as she thinks. Then she decides, “Yes,” her smile as conflicted as I feel.

Clarissa has been the biggest help in keeping me going as I’ve tried to keep Adam going. On the days and moments I’m feeling like I’m back to having nothing to count on, she’s here. I know some of what would’ve happened if I didn’t have her, especially this past year.

My eyes fill as my heart tries to, or does, the feeling there a twinge as I round the island, her arms already open for me. I’m a big hugger, and she’s the one I love to receive them from and give them to the most.

“Thank you,” I tell her through the tears that still stay at my lids.

“You always have me. For life,” she promises, ours.

“For life,” I repeat.

“All the same, I’m proud of you,” she tells me once we’ve released our hold to each other—my hold to her.

“I’m not,” I say after a hard swallow.

“Hey, you’re working with the tools you have. Like you were then.”

I have more now and I’m not using them.

She gives my loose tank top, tucked into my shorts, a tug, loosening more of the tuck. “Be the dragon,” she urges me, a soft reference to the dragon design. “Spit your fire.”

The bedroom door opens behind me and I watch Clarissa’s eyes shift over my shoulder before I turn to find Adam standing in the doorway. His chest is bare as his face bears ache and vulnerability, that he shields some in the presence of Clarissa, his clothes balled and shifting slowly between his hands.

I sigh at the sight of him, a grip loosening in my chest, but the threatening touch still there.

He holds my stare a moment longer, then walks to the bathroom, closing himself inside.

Clarissa gives me a folded smile with a lift of her brows before she retrieves her purse near our feet, knowing the deal. She eyes the bites still left on her plate, takes one second to think, then swipes it up. “I’ll bring this back later,” she says with a raise of the plate.

My smile is a copy of hers but smaller as she shoves in another forkful on her rush to leave like she’s stealing thousands worth of jewels.

At theclickof the apartment door, I glance toward the bathroom door, listening for the spray of sink water, then the buzz of the razor.

After those come and go, I listen for the spray of shower water.

When that comes, I let it pull me to him, to let us disappear into each other instead of into ourselves.

Our eyes connect through the glass as I strip, that warmed flare flashing through his ache and vulnerability, and remain connected as he slides open the shower door. His arms encircle my waist as I shut us in, a haze of hopelessness back in his eyes as he releases the words running through his head before I joined him.

“All I could do and be happy doing is gone. It’s never coming back, so I just think, why should I?”

I clasp the nape of his neck and squeeze as I pull him in, his forehead resting to mine, his eyes closing. Then I lean back, tracing my thumb along his brow, wishing they’d waggle again.

His smile lines are subtler.

My face hasn’t moved in the same ways, either.

Because I’d like to come backstays clenched behind my teeth, and I tell him, “Because you can do a lot and you can be happy with me.”

I can be happy with him too.

His eyes open, another flashing flare before his mouth finds mine in a kiss that’s probing, thirsting, chasing the past, tasting the sadness and the anger and the little hope we can still have in these moments.

He lifts me with a flash of pain on his face as I latch onto him. My back presses against the wall and his hand moves to my hip as he pushes inside me. And we feel each other, try to get back to each other, until the steam dissipates and we have to wash off in the cold.

I’m fighting shivers as I towel myself dry.

Adam stays in a bit longer. He can handle cold water. I need hell fire.

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