Page 11 of The Other Side of Apart

I stare at her, looking for any possible scenario in her eyes. Am I stupid to think we’re different than every couple I’ve ever known who didn’t make it through their toughest times? That we’ll last when none of them did? Maybe they never felt like this. “What if you decide you don’t want this? What if you leave?”

“Why would I ever leave you?”

“People leave, Mei. They just do, and sometimes we don’t get to know why, and that’s what scares me. Because if I knew, I’d do everything perfectly. But I don’t think I can, even if that’s what you deserve.”

Her eyes glisten, and a tear slides along her nose, quivering on her upper lip before dropping to the sheet between us. “There’s no such thing as perfect. I figured that out a long time ago, and I like our messiness. Messy is kind of our thing.”

I laugh to my lap. “Uhh, yeah. We’re pretty good at it.” I clench and unclench my jaw a few times, thinking. “So…” I pick at a thread on the sheet, watching it curl between my fingers. “What should we do about all this imperfection?” When I look up, our eyes collide, hover, linger.

Her fingers rake through the end of her ponytail draped over her shoulder. “Maybe we should just stay together forever and see how imperfect we can be.”

“That sounds like the first perfect thing we’ve said in weeks.”

She smiles to the sheet, rubbing a spot on her pant leg. “Now what? Is this our official restart? Leave the past in the past and move forward together as hopefully more than roommates?”

I smile over her head, collecting all the bright spots with my eyes—boat lights, the Ferris wheel on the pier. Streetlamps, emerging stars. Mei. “Guess you’ll have to stick around to find out.”

CHAPTER 6

Marcus doesn’t let go of my hand as he unlocks our front door, but he hesitates, the key dangling from the lock. “Never done the whole doorstep goodnight kiss thing.” He smiles down at me. “Since neither of us had an actual doorstep, I’m kinda dying to try it now that we do.”

His eyes move to my lips. I press them together like they’re going to leap off my face and attack his if he doesn’t get on with it, then grin up at him. “I mean…I had a fire escape, which is basically the same thing. So many missed opportunities.”

“Which Ideeplyregret,” he murmurs, leaning down until his lips brush my ear. “Not gonna miss this one.” His hands slide around my waist to my lower back, gathering me to him. My arms wrap around his neck, settling into the place they’ve created and still fit perfectly into after all their time away from him.

His mouth moves against mine, hesitantly, like he’s waiting for my response, and when I press against him, relief and anticipation mix in a desperate sigh.

His hands slide over my hips, his fingers pressing into them as he sidesteps us to the door and bumps it open with his shoulder. “Jerry and Wen can’t watch us in here,” he breathesagainst my mouth, pulling me inside and shutting the door with his foot.

He backs me against it in our dark cottage, his lips pulling sounds from me as his hands glide up my sides until he’s cradling the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair.

Relief rushes through me, a familiar crackling heat that sweeps away the past and hurt and misunderstanding. Our bodies curl around each other, but I’m still not close enough to him. He whispers “I love you, Mei” in my ear, and the words pool in my stomach before flooding my legs, swirling through my body as his mouth skims down my neck. All the time that has piled up between us melts in our heat, his body pinning me in a corner of the world only big enough for the two of us. I deepen the kiss, my hands on the back of his neck, curling in his hair.

He swears, guiding me backward toward the couch, holding me close as my back meets the cushions, his body hovering over mine.

All the thoughts he’s held inside rush from him in heated whispers, his mouth leaving his feelings in warm patches all over my skin. I pull him down, his weight pressing me deeper into the moment, deeper into the heat and relief winding around us. Our mouths and hands desperately release all they’ve been holding back until his smooth, warm hands slip under my shirt trailing fire.

I gasp, my fingertips digging into his back, my legs wrapping around his hips to close the space between us, but he curses and stills, drops his head to my shoulder, chest heaving. His heartbeat pounds through me as I clutch at him to keep him in the moment with me, but he growls, frustrated as he talks into my neck. “I gotta cool down or clothes are coming off.”

“Which would be bad because…?” I breathe into his shoulder, my hands in his hair.

His mouth takes control of mine again, my head swirling, body weightless even with his weight on me.

“Remind me why I wanted to wait,” he rasps against my lips, both of us breathless. He drops his head to the center of my chest, then groans and shifts to the side, settling between me and the back of the couch.

One hand moves to my neck, the other to my hip and he rolls me to face him, then leans his forehead against mine, our heartbeats bouncing off each other. “Whyyyy…” he sighs, his lips brushing my temple.

I bring one hand to his neck, curling his hair between my fingers, holding him in the steamy inch between us. “Because you have something to prove, apparently.” I smile up at him and catch his lips with mine for a soft, lingering kiss.

He pulls me closer until our stomachs are pressed together. “And also…” I whisper between long, deep kisses that drag my soul up to him, “you said you wanted to marry me first.”

His eyes are glossy in the dark, and I kiss his jaw, smiling when his body wraps around mine again. His fingers play with the waistband of my jeans, sending goosebumps across my back and around my stomach.

I draw a heart on his chest with my fingertip, my body slowly sinking into the couch as my hormones sigh, dejected but happy for any Marcus time. “But until then, I’m okay being here, just like this. With my favorite roommate.”

His teeth catch my lower lip, his arm wrapping around me, squeezing me until a laugh bursts from me. “I’ll be your roommate,” he says, sliding down so we’re face to face. “Your roommate with some pretty great benefits. With limits. For now.”

“I’ll take any of your benefits,” I say, kissing him, our bodies sinking into each other again, and when we surface a fewseconds or minutes or hours later, he smiles, beaming light into the darkness blanketing us.

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