Page 34 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

Kyle is here.

Kyle is here and we didn’t notice.

My thoughts are buzzing in a different way from how they were moments ago—buzzing with shock instead of sweetness, anxiety instead of affection.

Luke takes a deep breath and drops his fingers from my chin, leaving the place suddenly chilled; I’m glad he lets his hand go along my shoulder instead.

He says.

“He’s not right up on us, but he’s close. I don’t know how long he’s been back there.”

The idea of us being followed to the park makes me shudder. Could that really have happened? Could Kyle have followed us from where Luke picked me up at my apartment? Did he end up finding out where I live?

“Oh my God,”

I huff out.

“Of all the times for our dumb asses to get distracted.”

“Yeah, we dropped the gummy worms on this one, as it were, but—”

At that, sudden breathy laughter leaves me. It’s almost giggle-like even in these circumstances. Then I’m frowning because I don’t get how I can be anything other than upset right now.

I am, though. I’m amused and softened. Luke is funny to me, and comforting and cute and…God, so many other things that I just…love.

I guess that’s how I can be something other than upset right now.

He looks kind of surprised by my laughter, too, but he softens into his own smile. The wind blows a bit of my hair across my cheek and he brushes it away, causing tingles to ripple away from that place and go all through me.

“But,”

he picks back up on his sentence.

“everything’s okay. Besides, if he’s seen us being sweet to each other, maybe that’ll help him get the memo, right?”

My eyes go over and over his face as my amusement dwindles and as my happy thoughts merge with my worried ones.

An idea whispers at me.

But it’s not just an idea, it’s also a familiar want—one so strong it actually might be called a need.

“Right,”

I murmur my agreement.

“Maggie, is that you?”

comes on the wind from Kyle’s direction, but just like in the past, he doesn’t sound all that shocked to see me.

I land a long glance on Luke’s lips.

One. Two. Three. Go.

I stammer in a rush.

“Is—is there any chance you wanna kiss me again? Right now?”

New surprise flickers across his face.

Then he steps up to me as his expression falls serious. Breath skipping, I move to him, too, like the magnet for him that I am—still, he tugs me in by the shoulder and the hand he’s still holding, angling his face over mine as we run out of room to close between us. Our noses bump.

“Baby, I haven’t stopped wanting it,”

he says lowly.

I take in the stomach-swooping words. Take a fistful of his hoodie with my shaky free hand. Take this chance to be honest myself.

“I haven’t either,”

I whisper, and I lift my chin to—

His mouth takes mine.

I return the kiss, pressing and earnest. I draw him closer while his hand on my shoulder drops down my back, drawing me in, too, as much as he can, our hips just meeting, his body bowing just slightly over mine.

And it is not just for show.

It’s not.

The savoring cling of this kiss and the next and the lingering emotion from our earlier conversation hit me in a burst of warmth that goes straight down my spine, electric. That stirs me and soothes me at the same time because I’ve missed this, not just because Kyle is around. It’s so perfect that I almost wish I hadn’t started it since starts have to have stops.

Luke smoothly straightens us up, and another claim of my mouth by his has me summoning all my self-control to keep from wrapping him up in my arms and kissing him the way I’ve been wanting to: again and again, unabashed, heartfelt and carefree.

A throat gets cleared from nearby, making my pulse jump, unwanted on more than one level.

This kiss ends, too, and I hear the quiet sound Luke makes. It matches how I feel on the inside: unfulfilled.

And unhappy.

I’m unhappy—and nervous—about Kyle being here, about him not hanging back anymore, about him clearing his throat like he has the right to interrupt any kind of moment Luke and I might have. I had hoped our moment would send him away. I hoped he would leave if I ignored him and if he saw me and Luke doing something real that was more than just talking.

Luke nudges my nose with his again and confirms in a hum of a tone.

“He’s still here.”

That damn breath of his on my lips threatens to drive me insane…especially when I replay him calling me ‘baby’ in a similar fashion.

But no, near-insanity isn’t all I feel.

Kyle says.

“Maggie? It’s me, Kyle,”

and it kind of snaps something in me.

We’ve been advised not to get in his face or cause a scene because avoidance is smarter than confrontation, but between this mood he’s put me in and me not being vulnerable, I can’t stop myself from moving. I let go of Luke and shift and turn until I’m at his side and facing Kyle. The sight of his slow approach and his direct attention unsettles me even more, but all that does is make me burrow against Luke when he puts his arm around me; it doesn’t freeze the resolute words building up in my throat.

Kyle’s eyes go between us, then up and down me.

“Hey, how are you?”

he asks.

“It’s great to finally see you again. Lately I’ve looked for you at Mellow Burger and the—”

“Please stop, Kyle,”

I interrupt, my raised voice wobbling slightly.

“The night you asked me out, I told you to forget about me because I have a boyfriend. Please do as I said.”

Luke squeezes me and makes me feel even stronger.

But I notice Kyle has a frown on his face, showing displeasure I’ve never liked.

“What?”

he asks.

“Are you serious?”

Luke interjects.

“Excuse me?”

and gets the frown turned onto himself.

“You said, ‘Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry,’ entirely fucking wrong.”

“I’m just trying to be friendly.”

“Try being respectful instead.”

Kyle’s frown shifts into a glare, which has Luke dropping his arm from around me and standing straighter. I look up at him and see he’s glaring right back at Kyle. Every inch of his body looks like an answer to a challenge.

My heartbeat picks up with the inherent stress that comes with confrontation, but also with more comfort and with relief that I’m not the only one who’s ready for Kyle to finally get the picture and leave me alone.

And Jesus, does protectiveness look good on Luke.

I’ve tried not to think about that since the beginning, honestly, considering how seriously we’ve been taking all this; our fake relationship hasn’t been for fun. It’s kind of hard to ignore right now, though.

For another long moment, the guys keep up their glares. Then Kyle looks at me again and says.

“I still think you seem awesome and think we’d get along great. Could we just be friends, at least?”

…What? How can he ask me that?

I shake my head. I know my voice still won’t quite be stable, but I tell him outright.

“No. I’m not interested in that either. I want you to leave me alone.”

“You don’t even wanna be friends?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I’m torn between scoffing with disbelief and gulping with unease when Luke says almost warningly.

“Back off and go away. She doesn’t owe you an explanation.”

“Well, I feel insulted that I’m being brushed off without—”

“I don’t give a shit how you feel. What’s insulting is a dude thinking that what he wants matters more than what a girl doesn’t want.”

I watch an even, angry stare overtake Luke’s eyes.

“So accept you’re out of line and. Back. Off.”

‘I won’t let anything happen to you,’ I remember him saying a few minutes ago. It sprinkles pleasant chill bumps over me.

Kyle looks vexed, but my guy doesn’t even blink about it.

Momentarily, Kyle breaks the eye contact and looks at me once more. I feel quick hope that he’ll apologize. He should do that. Even if somehow he truly hasn’t meant to make me feel afraid, I at least deserve an apology for him questioning my boundaries.

However, all he does is scroll that sharply displeased look over me too.

“You’re dating this guy, huh?”

he asks.

“He’s your boyfriend?”

His tone is skeptical and it has me thinking back to how concerned I was in the beginning that he wouldn’t believe our act.

I wonder if Luke is remembering it, too, as he squeezes me again.

Trying not to let my nervousness return, I tell Kyle, “Yes.”

“And how long has this so-special thing been going on between you, exactly?”

I blank on how long Luke and I agreed to tell people we’ve been dating.

But Luke himself answers.

“Eight years.”

My stomach flips hard at that. I work on not letting it show as I nod my confirmation to Kyle.

He blinks at me with slow, dry surprise.

“Really? Because I didn’t see you acting like you cared about each other at all until after I asked you out.”

Uh oh. Oh no. He did notice our sudden forced camaraderie and that’s probably part of why he hasn’t stopped—

“Honestly, I—”

he lets out an unamused laugh.

“—I think it’s suspicious, Maggie. I’m not stupid, you know. It seems like you lied to me about not being single because you didn’t wanna give me a chance. You didn’t mention any boyfriend when I asked you to dinner the night before that. And I’m serious, you two didn’t get along any of the times I saw you together at Merritt’s before the night we met. You barely even spent real time together. You crossed paths all the time but snapped at each other and glared and acted like you got on each other’s nerves. And then I ask you out and suddenly you’re dating him and you’re happy with him? I don’t get it.”

It sounds like he really was watching me for longer than I realized. God, I knew he’d know Luke and I were putting on a show. I knew it.

“Did you lie to me?”

he asks.

“Did you say you weren’t single and then go find this guy and get him to pretend to be your boyfriend so I’d believe you? Or what?”

“No,”

I lie again now.

“I’m starting to really feel like you did, and I don’t like the idea that instead of giving me a chance, you lied to my face to get me to go away.”

He takes the smallest step forwards.

Luke’s answering step forwards is confident. He curls me behind himself enough that he can move between us.

Kyle’s accusatory eyes leave me as Luke says.

“The validity of our relationship isn’t for you to question any more than Maggie’s boundaries are. She wants you to leave her alone and that’s what matters, and actually, it has nothing to do with whether or not she’s single. What she’s said to you should be respected regardless.”

I can’t see Luke’s face from this angle, but I can feel the tension in his body and I know his expression has to be made of steel. The stare Kyle is holding with him feels weak in comparison.

“So for the last time, Kyle Danfords, back off.”

I hear Luke’s voice softening with threat, not with kindness.

“I’m not gonna say it to you again after this, because if you ignore me and keep trailing after her, there won’t be any talking, just me snatching you up and handing your ass to you.”

I can’t fend off a shiver—and I can see Kyle’s demeanor wavering something fierce.

Luke adds.

“And that’s not counting that we’ve already spoken to the police about you making Maggie uncomfortable. They’re aware of it. And we’ve kept a record of everything, including you approaching her in a dark parking lot and later trying to find out her address. Do you really wanna dig yourself in deeper just because you didn’t win the interest of one girl out of all the girls in the world?”

Kyle is finally shrinking. He takes a step back, then another, his look of anger and resolve giving way to what almost looks like…God, do I dare think it?

“The police?”

he asks, and yep, he sounds nervous. His eyes shift between me and Luke.

“I-I didn’t intend—I mean, I wasn’t trying to—to bother Maggie. I just thought we could—and I hoped…but I don’t want any trouble with…anyone. Not with you or anyone else.”

Full nervousness blares across his face as his widening eyes catch on Luke and his next slow step forwards. Kyle takes two more backwards.

Indeed, I’m not sure what he’s more afraid of: the idea of law involvement or the very real anger coming from the guy in front of him.

My heart jumps into my throat with almost painful hope.

Is it possible? Is all of this ending? Is Luke putting an end to it?

In that dangerously soft tone, Luke asks him.

“We’re clear, then?”

Kyle nods, his face flushing. “I’m s….”

He looks at me again and swallows hard, then straightens up out of his cowering.

“You’re right. Both of you. Sorry. It—it won’t happen again.”

And he turns around and hurries away.

I yank in a startled breath before a huff of relief blows out of me.

Luke still isn’t quite in front of me, but he doesn’t move back to stand at my side again either. We stay like we are and wordlessly watch Kyle go back the way we all came.

At least, we don’t speak until he’s reached a small white sedan in the parking lot. Then Luke asks me.

“You all right?”

For as shaken up as I feel, my, “Yeah,”

sure does come out faint.

New wind blows through, seeming a little chillier now than before since we aren’t touching the way we were minutes ago.

My whorl of emotions shifts and makes room for the sudden, spiking acknowledgement that I want it all back. I want to reclaim what we had before Luke noticed Kyle lurking nearby, when I got brave enough to tell him I miss him—not just younger Luke, but present-day Luke—and it felt like he was on the edge of opening up more to me too. I want us to keep going beyond that. Especially since it feels like we just won this thing with Kyle.

And I want…so badly, I want….

Part of my brain is still on the brief chaos of Kyle, who is driving out of the parking lot. The rest is on the memory of how easily, willingly, intently Luke kissed me out here. He didn’t get scared. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t try to come up with some other way to hopefully get rid of Kyle.

My heart rate picks up again.

I’m so aware of the little places we were touching during those kisses that a tremor is dancing over every inch of my skin beneath my clothes.

I catch him saying absently.

“We should finish our walk.”

I feel weirdly stuck. Despite how desperately I want to get back to the gentleness we were in earlier, I can’t come up with a path to it.

Can’t think of anything to say other than, “Yeah.”

Can’t look at him as we turn to face the direction we were going in pre-Kyle.

The loss of his touch is even more stark as the wind keeps moving through the many inches of space between us.

We resume walking.

And to my deep disappointment, it seems like every step builds some kind of tension between us, not gentleness and affection. Not even celebration.

He’s quiet. I’m quiet.

It’s an unreadable jumble, that tension, at least to me. We just had our second kiss, which came after our first kiss in so damn long, which came even after we had agreed not to share full-on kisses during our fake relationship because our real relationship is twisted up with resentment and animosity.

…Could he be regretting it somehow?

Where does it leave us?

I want to ask, but I’m suddenly nervous, so it just leaves us quiet.

And as the minutes pass, that doesn’t change except for how we both get surprised into half-hearted laughter by a couple of ducks walking right up to us, quacking cutely—a reprieve that’s as light as it is brief. Once we’re past the chatty pair, the tension settles between us once again.

In fact, by the time we need to leave so Luke can return me home to my friends, the air between us is so thick that getting in the car almost feels suffocating. The moment the engine is running, we roll our windows down literally at the same time.

It doesn’t help much, though, at least for my part, because quickly coming up now are thoughts of all the little things about grown-up Luke that grown-up me treasures. Things that have nothing to do with the past.

One by one, they slide me closer to the edge of something that feels distantly familiar and wholly new at the same time. It’s unstoppable.

But one by one, they also make me even more nervous about what he might be thinking.

That doesn’t change how alluring the edge is to me, though…

…or how fiercely I’m realizing I want the fall.

—

The drive home is eternal.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything as overwhelmingly strange as this. I don’t think I’ve ever felt simultaneously like I’ve done an amazing thing and a stupid thing.

I asked him to kiss me.

My pulse doesn’t know whether to be calm because I stand by that decision or chaotic because I know it’s the reason Luke hasn’t spoken to me since right after Kyle left us.

I get the sense he hasn’t looked at me either, but I don’t know that for sure. I haven’t looked at him. My eyes just won’t do it.

Is he angry with me?

The question—the worry—has still been prickling through me. As it does so now, I shiver a little; I try to mask it by shifting around in his passenger seat, rubbing at my knees, tucking my windblown hair behind my ears.

Please say something to me. Give me a hint about how you feel. I need to know if things are okay.

So thinks the girl who also hasn’t said a word for quite some time now.

But which words am I supposed to choose? Brave ones because I want to tell the truth about how I feel? Or try-to-smooth-it-all-over ones in case those are the appropriate ones?

The very idea of the latter has my stomach twisting with aversion.

Luke has become such a big deal to me. Far bigger than I meant for.

Before he noticed Kyle, I would’ve sworn on my life that he felt the same way about me. Now, though? Now all I can do is wonder if my bold kiss idea is what disrupted our peace, not me bringing up the past that includes betrayal we’ve carried for years and built our adult relationship on and tried to avoid during our fake-dating. It’s true that he didn’t object to the kiss—hell, he told me he’s been wanting it to happen again just like I have—but maybe afterwards, he realized he doesn’t want it anymore.

That idea actually hurts me.

And no, I can’t figure out how to verbalize any of this stuff. On top of knowing we don’t have much time to delve into it, it’s like I’ve gone into shock.

Then there’s how I feel about the Kyle thing itself. I can’t believe he was almost refusing to accept that I want him to leave me alone.

Underneath all that, though, was that sense of peace from Luke being on my side; it made me feel stronger. He was strong next to me and on my behalf. He didn’t stand there and let me do all the work, and I knew he was ready to make things okay however else I needed him to. He really was like my armor.

I got used to it so damn fast.

I’ve gotten used to all the good things I’ve discovered about him.

But not whatever is going on right now.

Luke turns the car into the parking lot of my apartment building. As much as I love being with him, it’s kind of a relief that I’m almost free of the weight between us—in person, anyway. There’s no way it will ease up off my mind, but at least I’ll have other things and my friends to distract me somewhat. I won’t have to feel every empty inch between me and him, won’t have to fill our silence with the racket of my thoughts.

It is a little bit crazy how intensely I feel those empty inches.

I want him to touch me. I want to touch him. I want that perfect mixture of familiarity and newness that has grown between us, effortless, breathtaking, honest, sweet.

How did I get this way? my old bitterness mutters. Luke Bramhill? Really? Of all people, it’s him?

Yeah. It is.

Normally, some type of contact would come once we’re out of the car and heading for the building, but it doesn’t this time. Aside from my sweater, there’s still nothing on my skin or shoulders or waist except for open air and sunshine and cool wind. He doesn’t try to hold my hand. I don’t bump arms with him.

We enter the building and the distance between us remains.

We step onto the elevator along with a couple with a baby stroller that separates us even more.

We reach the second floor and exit long moments apart because of the crowded space, and even after it’s just us again, we don’t mosey close to each other while we keep walking.

And as our time together ticks, ticks, ticks away, a sense of sadness grows in me.

What have I done?

The way things are between us right now compared to how they were earlier…it’s painful.

What was I thinking when I brought up kissing? Why didn’t I try to control myself?

We reach my door. My face burns, hands shake, throat feels dry as I dig my keys out of my purse. It all worsens while I unlock—

The gentle fingertips that go down my arm startle the keys right out of my grip. My gasp isn’t quiet enough to get lost in the metallic jangle-clank that hits the floor.

Chill bumps explode to life all over me.

It doesn’t matter that I’m not facing Luke—I still know he’s close at my back. Not only because his other fingers are now grazing down my other arm, too, but because I can sense his warm presence overtaking all the space that surrounded me before.

The tension heightens, and I realize all at once that it hasn’t been a bad tension at all. He just must not have known what to say either.

Again and again, the chill bumps cascade over me, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.

His fingertips have stopped at my elbows.

How can something so delicate hit so hard? How can a touch so light blow straight through sweater fabric?

I spend a few seconds soaking it up.

Then I cross my arms low over my chest and brush my still-shaky hands over his.

I can hear what the contact does to his breathing…and my heart swells about it being the same thing it does to my breathing.

It all intensifies as his hands slip out from under mine and land on my waist, spreading out, flexing just a little bit. Something in the back of my mind mutters self-conscious things, but I can’t pay attention to it. I can only think about how good his hands feel on me like this and how good they’d feel on so many other—

Noise comes from inside my apartment and makes us jump, surprises his hands off of me. I hear one of my friends call something to the other before some clanging sounds, likely from the kitchen.

I’m officially tired of things interrupting my moments with Luke.

But while our exchange of touches is ending, courage is rising up in me.

I turn around and face him, and I lose a heartbeat over how he really is just there, closer than he’s been for what seems like the longest time. As I finally look at him straight for the first time in just as long, my heartbeat goes so wild that it feels like my insides are made of millions of butterflies.

He’s looking straight at me, too, in a way I’ve never quite seen him look at me before.

The closest I’ve seen was yesterday on his couch, after we admitted that we feel more for each other than we expected to. And I remember teenaged Luke regarding me with affection, but as vivid as those memories are and as true as it felt at the time, it was nowhere near what’s being fired at me right now.

Right now, his expression is an open ocean, undulating between gentle and intense, his eyes as full of longing as they are that perfect shade of blue.

Longing.

Sweet and smoldering at the same time.

I can see it. I can feel it.

He isn’t angry with me. We didn’t mess us up. I….

More noise from inside the apartment.

My friends—I’m supposed to be reconvening with them. We have things to do together. I was only going to be with Luke for a little while.

The relief I felt about that back in the car is now trying to shift into unwillingness.

But it doesn’t matter whether I want more time with him. My plans have been set and they’re important. I have to go.

I open my mouth to say so, but he quietly acknowledges it.

“You have to go.”

I press my lips together and nod.

He glances at them and makes all my butterflies flap their wings like crazy.

I wish those words weren’t the first to pass between us after all our silence. However, this last minute has given me hope that when we do get a better chance to talk, it won’t be a bad talk.

My own words are even quieter than his.

“Can I call you tonight?”

“I’d fucking hate it if you didn’t.”

“It might be late.”

“I don’t care.”

I would dive into that look in his eyes if I could. I would dive in and live there.

God help me, I can’t imagine anyone else looking at me like that…and I don’t want them to.

“Okay,”

I whisper.

He inhales slowly, and so do I. He glances over me, and I do the same to him.

Then he steps away.

I don’t want it.

But I keep my composure and collect my keys from the floor.

“Have fun,” he says.

“Be careful,”

I say back.

We hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds more before he starts walking away. As I finally head into my apartment, I notice the tension between us doesn’t alleviate at all. It just seems to stretch out. Even after I’m on the other side of the closed door and my friends’ various noises and bits of chatter reach my ears in full, part of me stays connected to Luke.

It, too, outdoes even the connection I treasured so much when we were younger.

Although my old resentment gets grazed like a poorly protected nerve, it only smarts for a moment. Then far more welcome emotions come sweeping through me, stirring good memories from earlier in the day, yesterday, the week, farther back.

My happy friends’ greetings join in and color these present moments lovely too.

And I can’t pay attention to anything else.

—

As the day has sauntered on, it’s been easy to share in Emma and Joy’s good moods, but I’ve noticed my jitters still hanging around.

I know a lot of it has to do with Luke, but part of it has to do with Kyle. I caught the girls up on what happened at the park (except for the kiss because I still don’t want to get into all that yet) and although we’re all hopeful Kyle will leave me alone now, the unease hasn’t magically disappeared. Was it a coincidence that he was at the park or did he follow me and Luke from my apartment? After I was back home, could he have followed me and the girls to the grocery store? Would he have even after being stood up to? We were on the lookout for him just in case, and that isn’t exactly conducive to being chill.

Getting back home without seeing him or his white car made us feel better. I’ve been free to relax and enjoy our unhurried prepping of the Friendsgiving stuff we don’t want to have to deal with tomorrow. We’ve enjoyed a bit of wine and lots of laughs. We’ve talked more about our plans for this week and the cruise my parents are going on starting tomorrow; my friends are glad I’ll be sticking close to Luke, just like I am.

I’d say that last part reawakened my butterflies, but let’s be honest: they never really settled down to begin with. Every time Luke has crossed my mind over the course of the day, they’ve done everything from stir to flutter to come fully alive, depending on what my thoughts entailed.

It was even hard to relax into laziness in front of the TV. At the end of the day, after the girls and I had finished up everything we needed to do, we got back into Once Upon a Time for a few hours, but my focus wavered off of it and onto Luke again, again, again.

…Boy, does it say something about what he’s done to me that he could so easily distract me from Emma Swan and Captain Hook.

My friends didn’t notice. They were zeroed in on the show until they both got sleepy and went to bed.

I wasn’t very sleepy then and I’m still not now. Even sunk into bed with my lamplight soft and low, my eyes haven’t felt heavy. Even with the Kyle encounter lifted from my mind and recorded in my incident log, I haven’t felt like it’s time to call it a day, too, and drift off into rest.

All I can think about is Luke because I’m finally free to do it.

And I’m free to talk to him again. It’s almost one in the morning, but he told me he wouldn’t mind if I called late.

He might not have meant this late, though.

Just in case he didn’t, I text and ask if he’s still awake.

Not ten seconds later, my phone is vibrating with an incoming call and his name on the screen.

Funny how I’m eager to answer even though it kind of feels like my heart is lodged in my throat.

Indeed, my voice isn’t very substantial when I say, “Hi.”

He still hears it. “Hey.”

His tone is low and measured, and I like the way it sounds.

“How was your day?”

“It was good. My friends and I got a lot done.”

“I’m glad.”

My free fingers draw fidgety swirls next to me on the bed.

“What about your day? What’d you do?”

“Played video games with Pax.”

“Oh, great.”

“Yeah.”

We fall quiet.

Everything is quiet—my apartment, the night outside, the background on his end.

I’m reminded of the silence we were in earlier, which reminds me of the kiss, which reminds me of Kyle and how I realized some time ago that I forgot to mention something important to Luke.

I do it now.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say this sooner, but…thank you for everything with Kyle. The way you handled it meant so much to me. It…”

I swallow hard at remembering.

“…was perfect.”

“Yeah, I’ve got you, Maggie.”

There’s a gravelly touch to his promise and I really like the way it sounds, the way it moves through my ear and down my neck, the way it deepens his already meaningful words.

It makes me think about how he touched me while I was unlocking my door, and how he looked at me before we parted ways.

After I’ve caught my breath about it, it also makes me wonder if he’s tired. My swirl-drawing on the sheets grows slower. I imagine him lying in his own bed or maybe on the couch…. I remember lying on that couch with him, so close and so warm, getting better sleep than anyone had a right to in such a restricted space.

My thoughts wander to our kisses, then to the daydream of him being here, next to me again. And I don’t try very hard to stop them.

Biting my bottom lip makes me think now of how he touched me there at the park. My stomach flips hard like it did then.

‘It drives me crazy in a good way,’ he had said.

I think I hear him sigh, so I get back to what I was thinking before all this. Softly, I ask.

“Are you sleepy?”

“No.”

Oh.

“Are you?” he asks.

“No. My friends went to bed a while ago, but I’ve just been thinking about….”

My voice fades as the full truth stills on my tongue: ‘I’ve just been thinking about you. I’ve been thinking about us. I’ve been missing you.’

Once again, I find myself not knowing how to talk.

But this new silence ends with his.

“Can I come back over there?”

That low, slightly gravelly, unexpected question sends my butterflies into chaos.

“Can I come see you?”

he goes on.

“Just for a little while?”

I am made of butterflies because of him.

I get my voice to work again, but not to ask why he’s asking that. Not even to ask if he’s serious because of what time it is.

All I say is, “Okay.”

—

The moon manages to peek through the curtains in the living room. I sit in the silent shadows with my hands knotted in my lap, looking around and around without really focusing on anything. I halfway prepare for Luke to want to talk about the park and halfway prepare for one of the girls to wake up and open their door, see me, and question what I’m doing out here.

Maybe they would ask why Luke is coming over at this hour, and maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d leave it alone and hurry back to their room once they’d gotten their drink of water or gone to the bathroom.

The thought of either scenario makes me blush.

In fact, I feel hot in my pajama t-shirt and lightweight night pants. It’s why I left the lamplight of my room and pulled the door to and came to wait out here in the near-darkness, which is cooler and much more open.

My phone vibrates and lights up next to me on the couch. I check it.

LUKE: I’m at the door

Swallowing hard, I get to my feet. While I go, I clutch my phone to my chest as tightly as I try to keep my footsteps light.

Quiet, quiet, quiet, I tell myself as I unlock the door and open it.

Luke is standing there with his dark semi-curls mussed, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, his hoodie unzipped over his shirt.

And don’t forget to breathe, girl.

A stupid thing to have to remember, but the sight of him is so oddly breathtaking. Aside from being handsome, he also looks the way I feel: like the hours we’ve been apart have been long and all they’ve done is encourage intense thoughts to pile up, not mellow out.

His eyes soak me up and I almost apologize for still being in my pajamas—not because I think he cares but because I don’t know what else to say. In fact, I can tell he doesn’t care. It’s so wild to say I’ve become familiar with what adult Luke’s appreciation of me looks like, but I have, and I see it now.

He doesn’t say anything either. Even after he takes a breath and meets my eyes again like he’s about to speak, nothing comes out.

Bitter Maggie would bite out something like, ‘Okay, you said you wanted to see me, and now you have. Go away.’

I don’t want that, don’t feel that way. And I decide we don’t have to stand here until one of us figures out speech, so I just step back and wordlessly invite him into the apartment.

He takes the invitation.

I remember to be quiet, quiet, quiet as I shut and lock the door.

Just like that, it’s hard to see. The bit of moonlight I was sitting in before doesn’t do much at all for me now. But there’s no way I’m going to turn lights on in here and risk waking my friends, and if Luke wants to talk about the park, I know he’ll agree with me that a common area isn’t ideal for it. A conversation like that is private. So I do the only thing that makes sense: I turn on my phone’s flashlight and make my shaky body work enough to lead the way to my room.

Even without looking back, I can tell he’s following me, no questions asked.

Be quiet. Don’t forget to breathe.

That second thought becomes the more important of the two once we’re closed into my room, where he’s never been before. I try to focus on turning my flashlight off and setting my phone on the dresser near me, but my attention is mainly on how he seems to take up a crazy amount of this lamplit space. It’s something I’ve never felt anyone else do here or in any other room; it puts a buzz in the air.

The buzz worsens in the best way over how neither of us has moved very far from the other.

And even more over the fact that the new gaze we’re in is allowing the expression he wore hours and hours ago to build back up. The one that’s both gentle and intense, both affectionate and longing, and deep all the way through.

I’m free to mirror it this time with everything around us so still and silent, with no one else even awake.

Between everything I feel and everything emanating from him, I swear my heart is going to thump out of my chest.

What should I say?

What does he wanna say?

He takes another breath like he’s going to speak.

Then, at last, in a low rasp.

“Maggie, I….”

That tone hitting my ears in person, wrapped around my name. That expression. Gorgeous.

I’m not having trouble breathing anymore. I’m having trouble not breathing too loudly.

“I….”

he tries again, his brow furrowing just a little bit.

There’s no stopping my eyes from hanging a long look on his lips. I whisper, “What?”

I get back to those eyes just before they drop to my lips. It makes my heart skip a beat.

And another as he rushes out, “Fuck it,”

and comes towards me.

Thoughts of conversation are blasted from my mind. He stops right front of me, making my breath catch—he gets my face in his hands and tilts it up, slanting in.

I push into the kiss without pause, as hard as he does.

Once again, the perfection of him with me shocks me.

I know it shocks him, too, by the way he shares in my staggered, kiss-ending gasp.

But he loses one cradling hand in the thick of my hair and sways into me, pressing his eager mouth to mine again. I’m with him on it. Our back-and-forth is warm and firm and grasping, just like our hands as we try to gather each other in, in, in by backs and waists; he crowds into me and I welcome it even as my shoulder blades and head knock against the wall I guess we’ve moved to.

I’m his.

It hits me at last and all at once.

It makes me clutch him even tighter as our mouths part on heavy breaths. His tongue grazes my bottom lip, asking for the deep kiss I want myself, so I slip us into it and we make almost the same sound of heated liking—his huskiness tattoos itself on me, something I instantly go weak in the knees for, something I want an infinite supply of.

I’ve never thought something like that before.

I’ve never felt like this with anyone else—not even younger Luke, because all of this is so much better, so much more.

The earnest way he holds me in these kisses and in these moments with him makes me think he hasn’t felt like this with anyone else either. Makes me think I’m tattooing little bits of myself on him too. Makes me think it’s all more for him too.

I hope those things are true. God, I hope it.

I swear the air is sparking, crackling around us, as if to assure me they are.

My hands are under his hoodie, fisting his shirt. He somehow comes closer, urging me into the wall that much more, fingertips digging into my hair, my waist.

I’m yours, Luke, echoes in my head, throbs in my pressing lips, beats through my chest, flushes down my spine. I’m yours. Please don’t let me—

“Maggie,”

he murmurs out of our kiss.

“Maggie, fuck the fake relationship. Let’s be in a real one.”

The sudden words stun me.

And at the same time, they don’t. They fall right into place in my chest.

“A real one,”

I repeat in a puff.

He nods.

“I wanted to say it sooner, earlier, and now…. I don’t want us to have to stop ourselves from doing what we’re doing—”

his hand drags out of my hair so he can thumb at my lips.

“—or from saying whatever we wanna say or from anything else we want with each other. I don’t wanna keep finding myself happy with you and then thinking I’m not supposed to feel that way. I just wanna be happy with you—I want us to just be happy with each other. We make each other happy even if we didn’t think we could. So whether Kyle is finally backing off or not, I don’t want there to be an end to what we’ve been doing together. I want all of this to be the start of….”

I’m not sure which of us started trying to kiss the other even with his thumb still on my mouth, but we’re giving in to it. It’s clumsy and stamping and sweet and so not enough.

We don’t remedy that last thing, though. We both know there’s more to say.

Indeed, after another second, he goes on.

“I don’t look at you and only see the girl I’m pretending to date, or the girl I dated in high school, or even the girl I’ve been at odds with. It’s gotten to where I look at you and see who you are, who you’ve become, and damn it, Maggie, this is the version of you I want. I don’t wanna put on a show or even try to reclaim our good days from a long time ago. I wanna be who we are now and move ahead and build up new good days.”

As deeply as I feel all of that, the last bit stands out just a little bit more than the rest.

It sounds like he does very much feel the way I feel, but I still take a bolstering breath.

After I find the courage, I check.

“And…what about the bad days from a long time ago?”

Seems like the question pauses our world.

I let each of us sit in the stillness, let us think about that for a second, before I press weakly.

“Do we just…do we forget about them? Do we move on and leave them behind?”

In this silence, some part of me hums, That’s a stupid idea. You’ve considered it before and you know how fragile it is. Neither of you can just erase that pain.

I don’t want those thoughts, yet old bitterness tries to creep into me too. It whispers about betrayal Luke hasn’t asked forgiveness for. It prods at me for not apologizing for what I did wrong myself.

“Maybe—maybe we do,”

his soft stammer cuts through.

My exhale is shaky, and so is the breath he takes in.

He says.

“Maybe we finally put up a wall between then and now.”

He swallows hard and finally shifts his thumb off my lip, brushing my jawline instead.

“I don’t wanna keep going back there. I wanna stay here.”

My nod comes easily.

He nods too.

“I want a do-over with you, and I want this to be the start of it.”

Except is it a real do-over if we don’t try to fix what’s broken?

As I breathe, it feels like the air crackles in my lungs, too, not just around us. For the most part, I love the way it feels…but….

The warm part of me refuses, No, there’s no ‘but.’ Don’t overthink this to death, girl. Just live in it.

Luke touches his forehead to mine and further chases the unwelcome feelings away. I chase that touch right back and know this is what I prefer: this Luke, now, here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with him. It’s just like what he said about wanting who I am now; I don’t want the past to darken any of what we’ve found ourselves in these days.

I want all of our happiness, not our unhappiness.

To hell with those uneasy protests in my head, right? If he and I are in agreement about what to do, then that’s all that matters, isn’t it?

I move my lips to the corner of his and leave my own unsteady truth there.

“I feel the exact same way.”

His sigh is slow and warm. It loosens his muscles a bit.

The next few seconds are quiet, and then he just barely whispers.

“Thank you.”

A response I wasn’t really expecting. I thought maybe he’d smile or cuss appreciatively or even just kiss me again.

But it’s perfect, I realize, this thing he’s said. It’s as honest as any of those other things would’ve been—and actually, it somehow seems even more so.

I find myself whispering back.

“Thank you.”

And after a heartbeat.

“You really do make me happy, Luke. Shockingly, stupidly, sincerely happy.”

He inhales that and shifts back enough to look at me, allowing me to memorize how soft it turns him. What it does to his eyes, his brow, the corners of his lips.

Soft Luke is so beautiful it kind of hurts.

“That’s how happy you make me,”

he says.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

We huff into feather-light laughter.

“No, it doesn’t,” I agree.

He licks at his lips, then amends.

“Except it does, huh?”

His brow furrows now as his eyes drift to my eyebrow scar, I think, and the rest of my face, and where he takes some of my hair between his fingers.

And even without him trying to explain, I know what he means. We made sense from the very beginning.

Just as easily as moments ago, I agree again, “Yeah.”

Something about that puts a tiny sting behind my eyes.

Not wanting to cry right now, I refocus on something from a minute ago. I move my hands and smooth them down the front of his hoodie, notice that I can feel his heartbeat right through the fabric of it and his shirt.

Another thing I want an infinite supply of: feeling that.

And feeling one of his hands curling around mine, holding it to his chest.

And feeling warm all over and all through from the simple way he tips half a smile at me.

My voice is a wisp as I ask.

“Real, then?”

He nods and squeezes my hand tightly. “Real.”

I turn my hand away from his chest so I can squeeze back.

Skipping glances over faces become diminishing inches; we draw each other into one more kiss.

Then he says quietly.

“Hey, not to change the subject…but I’m sorry he was there.”

The mention of Kyle puts an unpleasant dip in my stomach.

Luke adds.

“Are you okay about that? And did you write it down in your log?”

“I did write it down.”

I blow a weak raspberry.

“I guess I’m okay. It was hard to relax when I was out with the girls afterwards, but….”

The second he releases my hand and drops his from my hair, I miss them like no one would believe. Then one of them is at the small of my back, allowing him to tug me with him as he steps backwards, and a sense of comfort wells up in me alongside the tingle his touch brings.

“Come tell me about it,”

he says with warm eyes.

“In fact, tell me about the whole rest of your day, ’cause I’m still not sleepy.”

He pauses moving.

“Unless you are?”

I give in to a smile. There’s no way not to. “Not yet,”

I reply.

“Thank you. Truly.”

“Nah, no need to thank me.”

Once we’re at my bed, he lets go of me again so he can flop down on it. While he gets comfortable and digs his keys out of his pocket, I spend long moments appreciating how he looks there, all casually strong and inviting and soothing, once again taking up space in a way I didn’t realize could be so damn nice…or so damn attractive.

Then he gives a little brain-lightbulb sort of a gasp and makes me refocus.

“And that reminds me,”

he says.

“Now that we’re not faking anymore, I can finally give back the thank-you money you forced on me.”

A laugh of surprise leaves me. I clap a hand over my mouth to stifle the rest of my amusement. I’d forgotten about the money.

Even though he’s quiet as he laughs with me, he smiles so much his eyes crinkle at the outer corners.

And, yeah, I’m…happy.