Page 34 of Last Love

Why I don’t wanna face him or deal with it right now.

For lack of better phrasing, I’m fucking exhausted.

Being mentally and emotionally present is exhausting.

Deciding who you are or who you wanna be is exhausting.

And deciding on who you want to be with?

Fuck, that’s the most exhausting shit of all.

I just need a little bit of time and space to process everything.

Breathe.

After killing the engine, I grab my workbag and head for my front door, thoughts of ordering pizza more prevalent than anything else.

“Pres,” a familiar voice calls out when I’m just steps from my front door.

That timber.

That tone.

My head slowly shakes is disbelief.

It’s not him.

It can’t be him.

“Pres…”

This time I do what I know I shouldn’t.

What I know I have no fucking business doing.

I glance over my shoulder.

Watch him leisurely cross from where he’s parked towards me.

Huh.

How did I miss that?!

How did I miss a complete stranger’s car parked outside my house?!

And how did he get into the neighborhood?!

Am I going to have request a new pin number now so that this shit doesn’t happen again?

“Pres,” he repeats, with certainty and uncertainty alike.

How is it after a decade my name still sounds so goddamn magical.

So fucking treasured.

So…loved.

On a deep inhale, I try to force my shaky hand to steady just enough to get the damn key into the lock. “I have to…” It only takes one actual look at the object to realize I can’t get into the house with something meant for the mailbox. “I have to go.”

“Wait,” Ry pleads with such desperation that my body instinctively melts in place, “please?”

I don’t wanna wait.

I wanna go into my house.

Slam the door between us.

Sag against the door and order pizza I can sob into all because I don’t understand how after ten years I’m still longing for someone who’s supposed to just be nothing more than a distorted memory.

“Can you-” he abruptly cuts himself off as if he’s unsure about the phrasing. “Will you please turn around and look at me?”

Still holding my breath, I slowly pivot until my back is against the door, a rain drop landing on my glasses the instant its there.

“I just…,” his voice seems to choke up more the closer he gets. “I just…”

My heart violently pounds against my ribcage to the same rhythm of his cautious steps.

“Fuck,” Ry airily groans, eyes roaming every inch of skin they can capture, “you’re even more beautiful now than you were back then.”

The compliment successfully empties my lungs.

Paralyzes my vocal cords.

“I just um…,” the verbal struggle to finish his thought continues as he extends a hand to touch mine.

Oh god.

No.

Now, he’s too close.

Too real.

I flinch away before our fingers can have contact, which provokes fear to fly into his expression. “Pres, are you…,” his breathing shifts to a choppier pattern, “are you afraid of me?”

“Yes.”

Another raindrop lands on my cheeks, exactly where tears should go. They seem to be increasing in frequency giving me the perfect excuse to rush inside.

To separate myself from this.

Him.

“I swear I’m not that fucking guy anymore, baby. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

My response is mindless, “I know.”

I don’t know how I know, but I do.

I can feel it.

I can feel it in the very place I’ve always only been able to feel him.

Pushed by another unspoken emotion, Ry shifts his frame until his proximity has me anxiously gasping for air. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

One hand rushes out to stop him from inching closer yet in colliding with his rock-hard chest, feeling his rapidly beating heart, a confession comes tumbling from my parted lips. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

There’s a crack of thunder in the sky warning me to go while my brain is still functioning.

While my senses and soul still stand a chance.

“Because I belong to you,” he declares, frame that’s bigger and wider and manlier than the smaller version I held so many years ago nestling against mine. “Because I belong with you.” The tips of our noses lightly brush. “Because no matter how fucking lost I get, I’ll always find my way back to you.” I drop my mouth to say something – albeit I don’t know what – when his hand curls around the nape of my neck with the same familiar precision. “You’re my home, baby.”

It’s impossible to tell if he pulls me into him or if it’s me pushing myself back into the only place I’ve ever wanted to be.

Our open mouths recklessly crash together at the same instant that the downpour begins. Within mere seconds my tongue is devouring tastes I haven’t had in what feels like an eternity and no matter how fast it moves or curls or sweeps, it still doesn’t feel fast enough.

Hard enough.

I need every last drop of Ryder Collins.

And I need it right.

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