Page 148 of Come Apart
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Everything is perfect.
Alyssa is here with me, in my apartment. We spend the night tangled up together. When we wake, the sun is shining bright in a cloudless sky. The air is sweet and salty.
She's here. She's mine. We could have this every day.
I fix her coffee. When she sees it, she smiles like she's won the lottery.
She slides her arms around my neck, presses her lips into mine. I close my eyes and soak in the feeling of her.
Her eyes find mine. She looks so comfortable, so damn happy. I want to ask if she's finally done with this space, if she's ready to come back and be mine again, but I hold my tongue.
I don't want to fuck things up now by scaring her off.
She motions to the balcony and sets herself up on one of its lounge chairs. She has everything she needs—her coffee and her Kindle and, in a minute, me.
I fix a cup of tea and sit next to her. It's a warm day, but Alyssa shivers when the breeze passes over her arms.
"You want to borrow a sweater?"
She shakes her head. "Coffee is the only sweater I need."
"Then I guess I won't offer my shirt.”
"You should have opened with that."
Our eyes connect and she smiles. There's a lightness to her right now. Like she's finally relaxed.
I take a deep breath. "I've been thinking."
"You look cute thinking."
"Do you still need space?"
She shakes her head. "I don't like being away from you."
The tension in my body releases.
"But I only want to do this if we're going to do it right." She looks down at her coffee and takes a long sip.
I turn my body towards hers. "What does right mean?"
"Well, um." She presses her fingers into the cup. Her eyes are still on the floor.
She's slipping, going somewhere else in her head.
"You know you can tell me anything," I say.
"It's just..." She looks up. Her eyes are heavy. "I'm not sure how I'm going to handle this if you say no."
"What is it?"
She bites her lip. Looks at the ground again. "Did you think about what you want?"
"You know what I want. I want you."
She closes her eyes and takes another sip of her coffee. Then another. She downs most of the cup before her gaze turns to my tea. She looks at me like she's asking permission to take it.
