Page 133 of Bribed by the Billionaire Bad Boy

Prickles of fear run down my spine, and it’s only in that moment I’m not sure if I want to go home anymore. The moment after I left, it’s all I wanted. But that was two weeks ago. Two weeks of trying new recipes in Lex’s kitchen, falling asleep in his arms, waking up to find him on his phone looking at the strangest things. I don’t want to bounce around. Not when Iknow I’m safe now, and I’m still not sure about her.

“You…don’t.” It isn’t a question, and pain filters into her expression. Her jaw clenches. “Why?”

Why?There seems to be too many reasons, all of them big.

“Is it because of him?” she prods.

I can’t deny that he’s a large part. If I didn’t have quite so safe and comfortable a place to land, maybe I wouldn’t hesitate to go back, even if it means little would change. I’m lucky. So many don’t have the luxury I’ve found.

“I’m not ready yet,” I say at last. “Maybe next week. Maybe we can talk, just us, and make some decisions.”

Her brow furrows, and she asks, “About?”

“Everything. You don’t even trust me when I’ve never lied to you. I’ve kept secrets, but I’ve always told you the truth. And the things you say, they hurt. I can feel when you’re upset, down to the moment your mood shifts, and I really don’t know why you’re upset so often or what I’ve done to deserve the brunt of your response.” I swallow hard, if only to stop myself from spiraling. “We havea lotto discuss and figure out, but if you’re willing to try, I am, too.”

She sighs, nodding eventually.

The last thing she tells me before she leaves is that she liked my play.

Lex

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summer has come and gone, one week at a time. I kept Calypso as long as I could, but with every new effort made between her and her mother, I knew long before she told me that she was going back home—if for a little while.

That’s what strikes me.

We spent the summer together. Long days filled with music, laughter, baking, popsicles, and holding hands. We went places with Rebecca, video-chatted Jason, and made plans for when we’re back at college. We spent our nights driving down long roads and dancing in fields to the choreography for her new plays.

We still aren’t dating. We still haven’t confessed anything to each other.

The time is never right. Or I’m not sure why I have to say something we both already know. There are always other things to consume ourselves with. We too often communicate in silence, speaking for each other, just knowing. It seems weird and useless to say what we both constantly already feel.

Yet when she finally made the decision to go back home, she made it sound like she’d be back eventually in a comfortable sort of way that feels eternal.

Maybe I’m delusional, but an unspoken proposal fits us too well.

She already has to know I’d say yes.

Now, summer has come and gone. The taste of autumn dances in the air, just out of reach yet arriving too soon. Calypso has been back home for several weeks, updating me constantly with the crappy pictures her phone takes. I’ve kept some distance, just to give her space to be with her mother, just so itdoesn’t seem like I’m trying to hog my little sugar glider.

School has started. A crisp Monday. And I’m strolling toward the theater room, way too early.

Music streams past that unassuming door, and it clutches a fist around my heart. Because it has been far too long.

I slip inside, and Calypso doesn’t even stutter or look, just like she knows.

But of course she knows.

She’s brilliant like that.

I find my place on Mr. D’plume’s desk and sigh into the new tune when it changes into an old one I’ve only heard once before. It’s the song I swore she wrote about me, even though I’ve never heard her sing a line of it.

With those notes playing in the background of the place where we came to be, I murmur, “Hey, sugar?”

Her gentle hum comes on key, and I love how she breathes music and stories and endlessness in every fiber of her being.

“I love you.”