Page 45 of Here for a Good Time

“We’re going to die!” Nita is still going at it, but she’s slowed down from exhaustion. Noticing it too, Leila takes the shears from her without a word, and continues on, white knuckles gripping the dark green plastic handles.

“We are not going to die,” Leila says, her red, splotchy face marked with tears and sweat. “I—”

Without any warning, Zwe kicks the shears out of Leila’s hands.

“What the—” she starts, but can’t finish because Zwe pushes both of them with enough force that their backs slam onto the floor.

While we’re all stunned, he bends over, scrambles for the shears, and tosses them into the flames.

“What the fuck,” I whisper, refusing to believe what I just saw with my own eyes. “What did you just do? Why did you do that!” I scream, wanting to slap him.

“Go,” he orders.

“No!” I say. Then, because I’m so angry I don’t know what else to do: “Fuck you.”

But he doesn’t even flinch.

At this point, I can feel all of their eyes on me, but I can’t stop shaking my head at Zwe.

There’s movement beside me, and I turn to see Leila helping Nita up. “We have to go.” Leila’s voice is the quietest I’ve ever heard it. She catches my eye for only a second before assessing the burning room. “We have to go now, it’s our last chance.”

“You guys go,” I repeat. “I’m staying.”

“No, you’re not,” she and Zwe both say at the same time.

Anger overtakes the rest of my emotions. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I reply.

“Leila, knock her out again if you have to. Get her out of—” Zwe orders.

“Screw you!” I yell.

“Poe, we have to go! Now!” Leila says, then nods at her cousins. Faith and Garima start moving, but I dig in my heels. “Poe!” Leila repeats.

Zwe’s hands are curled into fists. “Listen to her!” he pleads. “You’re going to die!”

“Then I’ll die!” I cry. “I don’t want to do any of it without you anyway!”

Zwe looks like he’d knock me unconscious himself if I were close enough. He’s going to yell at me to leave until his dying breath, and I’m going to refuse until mine. Unstoppable force, immovable object.

Right as he opens his mouth to beg once more, an alarm screeches over the sound of flames and wind and rain. It’s so sharp and loud that it feels like it’s drilling itself into my skull.

Wetness. Rainwater being splashed at me from all directions.

But it’s not rainwater. And it’s not coming from all directions.

It’s only coming from one direction: up.

I look to the ceiling, where the sprinkler system is pumping water down onto us.

A drenched Andrea comes over, looking as weary as the rest of us.

“You all are so dramatic,” she says with a reprimanding shake of her head when the alarm dies out.

“I told you all I needed was some peace and quiet. Not that any of you delivered on the ‘quiet’ part. And this goes without saying, but you guys need to chip in to buy me a new laptop.”

We stare at her, mouths agape, water still showering down on us. It’s cold, but I don’t even care.

“You little nerd!” Nita is the first to snap out of the trance, leaping over and throwing her arms around Andrea. Leila pounces from the other side.

Garima and Faith go to join them, but upon realizing they’re still propping me up, stop themselves right before accidentally letting go.

“It’s okay.” I laugh. “Can you help me sit down?” With a lot of care, they help me down to the floor. Then, in a distinctly unromantic manner, I crawl over to Zwe. “Hi, fancy meeting you here,” I say, looking up at him from the floor.

“Do you mind freeing me before you jump straight into flirting with me?” He motions at the garden shears on the floor, which hadn’t actually made it into the flames and are still intact.

“I can try,” I say, picking up where Nita left off. To be fair to her, she had gone through most of the rope. A couple more minutes, and Zwe would’ve been free.

“Do you want me to—” Zwe reaches down for the shears, and I whack his hand away.

“You’re the damsel in distress here,” I say as I saw through the last strand of rope. “So sit back up, shut up, and look pretty.”

“Aye aye, ma’am.” After a few seconds of intense sawing, the brown jute snaps in half, and the coil of rope falls to his bare feet. “My hero!” Zwe exclaims.

“I expect a hefty monetary reward,” I say. I try to drop the shears, but it’s more like they fall out of my limp, noodle-esque hands.

“How about a hug?” Before I can ask what he means, he’s bending over, scooping me up, and putting me back down on his lap.

I wrap my arms around his neck, although on account of their frail and shaky state, they’re not doing much to keep me upright.

“Don’t worry, I got you,” he says, and lifts his shoulder to indicate that he’s not letting go of the arm behind my back.

I wrinkle my nose. “You smell.”

“Yeah, because you smell like freshly washed laundry right now.”

“But you—” I lean in, my nose grazing the stubble on his jaw as I take a deep inhale.

“—you really smell.” I move back, and I can see him prepping to return whatever insult I’m about to hit over to his side of the court.

Instead, I cup his chin in one hand, letting my thumb trace every millimeter of his jaw.

A thrill whisks through me at the fact that I get to do this now. Finally. “You smell like home.”

His jaw works under my touch, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Do you still mean everything you said back there?”

This takes me by surprise. “What? About…”

“Yeah.” He whispers it, like he’s bracing himself for what comes next.

“Why wouldn’t I?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Maybe it was just adrenaline. Maybe you thought we were dying and you didn’t want to hurt my feelings—”

I snort a laugh. “You think I told you I loved you because I didn’t know how to let you down gently?”

“Maybe,” he says. Then, cautiously, discreetly, “Do you?”

And in an instant, he looks so soft and vulnerable and just like a kid again, the same one who let me use his library book allowance to borrow Betty and Veronica Digest No. 135.

I run my fingers up and down the nape of his neck.

“I meant every word. I am so grateful for everything that Give Me a Reason has given me, but none of it would’ve meant anything if I’d lost you in the process, and I can’t believe I came so close to doing just that with this second book.

They’re just books. You —” I move forward, resting my forehead against his, inhaling once again the same scent that I would smell when he leaned over to remove my laptop and put a blanket on me whenever I fell asleep on the couch.

“You mean everything to me. None of it would be worth it if I didn’t have you in my life.

But I’ve wanted this life and this career ever since I was a kid, and it just felt scary, you know?

Like suddenly I had everything I’d ever wanted, and you were so proud of me and I was scared that I was going to let you down and also that I was going to let myself down.

I’m terrified that I’ve only ever had one good book in me. ”

Zwe shakes his head. “That’s not—”

I press a finger to his lips. “But that’s okay.

” Lines form across his forehead. He tries to speak again, but I get ahead of him.

“I’m okay if I don’t write any more international bestsellers for the rest of my life.

I’m okay if none of my other books get turned into movies.

Look, will it suck if my next book doesn’t hit any of the bestseller lists?

Yes, of course, and I’ll cry to you about it, and I’ll feel like a failure and like no one will ever want to publish another one of my books ever again.

But you know what? Then I’ll get over it.

“Because you were right. I didn’t used to care about writing international bestsellers, I just wanted to write.

I remember when I dreamt about getting to a point where I could spend my whole day writing.

That’s all I wanted to do—write. I need to get back to that.

Because as much as I love writing books, and I do want to keep writing for as long as they’ll let me, at the end of the day, they’re just books.

This is just a job. I’ll still be a writer even if my publisher drops me and no other publisher signs me.

I can live with losing a job. But over the last forty-eight hours, I was petrified that I would lose you, and that I’d never see my family again, that the last time we saw them was the last time we saw them—and suddenly it didn’t matter at all that I didn’t know what my next book was going to be about. I couldn’t live with losing you.”

We’re both crying now, holding each other like two people who were moments away from tipping over the edge of the world. “You’ll always be my favorite author,” he tells me.

I nod. “That’s all I want,” I say. “ You are all I want. I’ve been so busy worrying about never writing another great book that I’m not even enjoying the rewards of this one.

I mean, my book bought us our home. It bought my parents their new home.

It bought me a fancy last-minute holiday with my best friend, which, ‘armed intruders and nearly being burned to death’ hiccup aside, is pretty darn cool. ”

“It is,” Zwe agrees. “You’re the coolest person I know.” Then, “Ask me again,” he says hoarsely.

I’m about to ask Ask you what, but when his gaze drops to my lips, I don’t need to. I never want to reset again, because I see it now, how every single thing we’ve been through over the past two decades had to happen for us to arrive here.

“Can I kiss you?” I ask. I feel myself smiling so wide that my cheeks hurt, and I’m scared I’m smiling too big to be able to kiss him.

“Always,” he says.

In another very unromantic moment, the kiss starts off awkward. For one, we’re both too impatient for it and our teeth bash into one another, causing us to pull back with muffled Ow s.

“That was such a shit first kiss,” I laugh.

“Doesn’t count,” he says, shaking his head.