Page 90 of The Two of Us

My voice comes out with a tremble. “I… I just—”

He turns away with a grunt. “Go home, Mara.”

Anger erupts in my chest. “Don’t be an asshole, give me a minute!”

His head turns slowly, eyebrows arched in amusement. “You’ve had seven years.”

I shouldn’t have come. I’ve been in his house for five minutes and we’re already baring our teeth. This has to be a red flag.

“This was a mistake. I should go.”

Ambrose doesn’t bother looking surprised. He storms past me and grabs a beer from the fridge. “Go ahead, Mouse. Run away.” He lowers his voice a notch. “You should have a fucking endorsement deal from Nike.”

“Don’t call me…”

My eyes catch on something to the left of his head. It’s easy to miss, but it’s there. Glued to the corner of the fridge door. I stare in awe, shocked that it’s still in pristine condition after all these years.

“Where did you get that?” I point.

Ambrose looks confused, but when he follows my gaze he releases a small sigh. I reach my fingers out to touch the stained glass on the magnet.

Ambrose steps closer to the fridge, his expression a mixture of adoration and protectiveness. As if I’m going to take it back or break it into a million little pieces. “After you left that night, I saw it sitting on the counter. When I opened it, I knew who it was from.”

It’s no bigger than a sand dollar. And it’s just a magnet. But the stained glass makes it look like a relic. I bought it for Ambrose when I visited my mom in Paris and found myself in a tiny bookstore. To anyone else, it might seem like a random gift, but it makes sense to us. The little mouse stares back at me, its eyes made from ruby and azure-colored glass. We were just getting back on good terms again, but I wanted him to have a small piece of me. Even if no one else understood its meaning. Even if the piece of me came in the shape of a small magnet on a fridge.

The lump in my throat is heavy and my eyes well. “You kept it all this time?”

Ambrose gently tugs the stray curl near my ear and his voice is rough when he says, “Of course I kept it. It was all I had left of you.”

I move first this time.

I hurl myself toward Ambrose, savoring the sound of our teeth clashing together. I immediately retract everything I said about kitchens not being sexy. Beer still in hand, Ambrose wraps his free arm around my waist and lifts me onto the counter. I clasp my ankles together behind his back, securing his core tightly against mine and he shudders out a moan.

We cling to each other, our heavy breaths dancing in the air. I rock back and forth, the pulsing sensation coiling tight at my center. I shoot my tongue out toward his but before they can connect, Ambrose draws his head back, hand clasped firmly on my chin. “What do you want?” His voice is gruff and every part of his body is hard against mine.

It’s one word but it means everything. “You.”

The sound of relief that comes from him strikes me like lightning. Ambrose’s mouth lays claim to mine and his movements become demanding. I feel like a bomb that has lain dormant for years and Ambrose has just pushed the big red button. We’re exploding together in the middle of his kitchen and suddenly kitchens are my favorite part of a house.

His beer bottle shatters across the floor as he uses both hands to hoist me into his arms, carrying me toward the stairs. We disregard the mess. Shards of glass lie broken on the floor, but I’ve never felt so whole in my entire life.

Ambrose lowers me onto his bed and I’m impressed by how quickly he got us to his room with his eyes closed.

He tugs at my shirt. “Lift your arms for me, baby.”

I oblige.

Our breathing grows heavier and our hearts beat faster as more articles of clothing gather on the floor. When Ambrose pauses his hands at the hem of my underwear, the question clear in his eyes, I nod—unable to form the words to explain just how much I want him. How much I’ve always wanted him. He lowers himself on top of me and I push myself flush against him, my head cradled in his palm. He trails his fingers along my rib cage and when they glide against the hard peaks on my chest, I bite down on my lip.

“Ambrose,” I beg.

When Ambrose juts hits arm out toward his bedside table, I tell him I’m on the pill and he lets me pull him back into my arms. Slowly, as if needing to remember the moment for the rest of our lives, Ambrose inches into me as he trails soft kisses along the slope of my neck. Our movements are a dance we already know the steps to and when the part of me that’s been wound tight for seven years finally explodes, I scream out, clawing my nails into his back. Ambrose devours the sound in his mouth, claiming it as his own. And when I grind my hips in a circular motion, his grunts of pleasure follow closely behind.

When we come down from our high, we lie together, a tangled mess of limbs on the bed I’ve fantasized about since I learned about hormones and puberty. The soft blue of dusk dances through the window as I memorize the shape of Ambrose’s closed eyes. His breathing is even and I refuse to change my position even though my foot’s falling asleep. I don’t want to wake him. I’ve never seen him look so peaceful.

His phone buzzes on his side table and I scramble off the bed to grab it before it wakes him. I moved my thumb to silence the call, but before I do, my eyes trip up on the name.

Mom.

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