Page 88 of Shiver
I smile. “Thanks for always having my back, man.”
He grins and nods before turning. Now to go find my man. Can I call him my fiancé yet? The dopey smile on my face can’t be helped.
THIRTY-TWO
RAKESH
I havethe curtains drawn Thursday morning to keep the sun out and prolong the illusion of night. It works for Egon, though I’m wide awake. Once again, I’m contemplating renting a larger apartment. While I’d rather have Egon close all the time so I can just reach out and touch him when I want to, I wonder if being too close too often is detrimental to a relationship.
Since I have nothing to compare it to, I’ve been reading articles online in my spare time.
Egon is curled up beside me, his face tucked against my ribs as he snores quietly. While I haven’t exactly had time to freak out, I’m waiting for it to happen now that we have four days to mosey along until Egon’s last final on Monday. It’s health psychology, by far his easiest class. While we will make a point to study every day, it’s not as strenuous as the last few weeks have been.
I’m confident he passed the three finals and the classes. Only one of them, chemical systems, has posted the final grade and Egon scored a C. The other two are still hovering somewhere around a C- until his finals get added in.
I look down at him and just stare. This man is mine. It never occurred to me to want someone forever, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ever be without him. It’s simply not an option. At all. That I ever thought I could walk away from him is something I still cannot fathom. That he forgave me is just inconceivable.
But that I love him? Probably one of the most frightening experiences of my life. I’ve experienced such a rush of emotions these last two months. From feeling like I’m a walking shell, miserable and empty, to being so heartbroken and horrified at what I did to him. The pain in his voice, the anguish on his face, how he sounded when he was convinced that he’d done something wrong to cause me to be the world’s biggest dick to him.
These things were burned in my mind. I couldn’t stop feeling the helpless grief that swept over me when I told him the truth. How suddenly my entire life changed because if he didn’t forgive me, if he walked away this time, somehow my entire life would be just meaningless.
How could one person be the center of everything? How did it happen when you didn’t see it coming?
And now, now that he’s mine, being the man he needs and deserves has somehow become my only goal in life. This driving need and determination to make sure that I’m worthy of his love is dizzying. The need to know that he’s smiling and happy, that he doesn’t want for anything, that he never hurts or has even an inkling of sadness… It’s consuming.
I don’t recognize myself. How did my studies become second fiddle?
Egon murmurs and I pull my mind from the thoughts that often consume me when I lie awake waiting for him to wake up. He’s got practice today and then the team is getting together for a barbeque. Egon wasn’t excited to go but with no excuse anymore, I convinced him he needs to spend time with his teammates again.
The pretty pink on his cheeks when he shyly asked me to go with him was everything.
“Rake?”
I shift to wrap him more firmly in my arms. Egon sighs as he curls into me. “Hm?” I answer quietly, running my fingers through his hair.
“Just making sure you’re still here,” he murmurs.
His words sting. A reminder of the weeks when he’d woken up alone. Wondering why I’d abandoned him.
“Always here, baby,” I whisper.
“Forever,” he answers sleepily.
That forever is about to happen far too quickly. There are going to be a lot of questions. Ones I’m not truly ready to answer because I don’t know the answers myself.
What I do know is that I refuse to live without Egon Wolf. This man is mine. And I will do anything to keep him. Marriage had seemed so blasé and unappealing,, until Egon and I teasingly brought it up. But since the moment he mentioned it, getting a ring on his finger has been at the forefront of my mind.
Several options are sitting in my desk drawer. My plan is to bring him to the courthouse on the way to my home and make it legal. Get his name change processing while we’re on break so by the time we get back, his records at school are already being processed. We’ll exchange rings at the courthouse. I called and had a handful of the family rings sent to me for the occasion.
But this isn’t going to take place until Tuesday. Five days is feeling entirely too long to wait.
Egon sighs again and I feel his eyelashes flutter against my skin. “I love to wake up in your arms,” he whispers.
“Good. That’s how it’ll be going forward.”
His grin is wide as he presses his face to my skin. “Unless I’m at an away game.”
“You have relatively few of those left in your college career. But when they’re done, never again will you sleep in a bed other than mine,” I say.
