Page 49 of Here for a Good Time

“No it’s not, not even close,” I tell him. “No more waiting to go after what you want. You’re going to do your PhD, and you’re going to leave accounting behind and become a teacher. Exactly like you want to.”

He exhales a tired puff of air. “The bookstore—”

“Will be fine.”

“How?” He begins chewing on his bottom lip. “What will my parents do if sales are slow? What if they can’t afford to hire an accountant? How—”

“I’m buying the store.”

That stuns him into silence. He surveys me for a long time, like he’s waiting for me to take it back and say Just kidding! But I don’t, because I wasn’t. “Why?” he asks, drawing out the word.

“Because I love that place,” I tell him, plain and simple.

“Because your parents are going to retire soon, and I don’t want it either getting shut down or being sold to someone who won’t love it nearly as much as I do, or you feeling pressured to keep running it when you don’t actually want to.

It goes without saying that I’m not kicking them out.

They can keep running things for as long as they want to, but I don’t want them to feel like they have to do everything .

We’ll hire a new accountant, and a couple of part-time staff members who can help with the eventual transition.

I’ll work with an advisor and propose a fair number that makes sure Auntie and Uncle never have to worry, even during a bad sales month.

That place took care of me when I was struggling; it would be my honor to be the new owner. ”

“I can’t let you do that,” Zwe says, but his tone has gotten soft. “My parents won’t let you do that.”

I dismiss this with a wave. “Please, your parents love me, they’ll let me do basically anything I want.

” He smirks because he knows I’m right. “What Leila said before, it made me reconsider how I want to spend all of this money I now have. I know I deserve to treat myself every once in a while, but I also want to put it toward something… good. And selfishly, I can’t think of a better way to spend a chunk of it than buying my favorite bookstore in the world.

I mean, how many people get to do that?”

“You… haven’t run this by my parents, have you?”

“Oh, of course not,” I say. “I know who you get your stubborn genes from. I’m not going to Auntie and Uncle until I’ve got a solid, color-coded PowerPoint presentation—”

“A PowerPoint presentation?” Zwe asks, amusement tugging up one thick brow.

“Complete with graphics and charts, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he replies.

“It’s always been our bookstore, our place,” I say. “And this way, it always will be.”

I don’t realize I’m crying until he brushes a thumb across my cheek and I feel the wetness get smudged. “Hey, why are you crying?” he asks.

It sounds so cheesy to put into words.

Because I have everything I’ve ever wanted, finally.

Because I do. I have Zwe, and we have a home, and now I have (or am going to have, once I wear down Auntie and Uncle) our bookstore, and we have our health and our families and I just cannot imagine wanting or needing anything else.

“Just… thinking about all of those new releases I’m going to get my hands on in advance,” I say with a sniffle.

His face wrinkles as he laughs. “Come here,” he says, and pulls me into him. “I love you,” he tells me.

“Love you more.”

“Not possible.” He plants a soft kiss in the middle of my forehead. “You’ve really thought this all through, haven’t you?” I can see the hope building in the way his voice softens, in the new spring of tears in his eyes. It’s as though he’s thinking, Do I really get all of this?

“Nothing has felt more right,” I tell him.

“I can’t wait to go back to our safe and cozy home tomorrow.”

“Me too,” I say. And I know it’s such a cliché, but when he kisses my cheek, I think, Actually, I’m already home .

“Hey, there’s… something else. In the spirit of confessing things, can I tell you something?”

“What’s that?” I murmur into his skin.

“Do you remember that huge fight we had about the sofa? Before we first moved in?”

I pull back, and Zwe’s got a sheepish look. “Yeah.” I frown. “I remember you were so mad about a stupid sofa.”

“And I remember you were so annoyed that I was annoyed about wanting the expensive sofa and not the cheaper teal one that you picked out. And I made up some bullshit about it being a better investment, but the truth is, I got angry because you said—” He pauses to swallow.

“You said that there was no point in buying the more expensive one, because what will we do when one of us moves . And I know it wasn’t logical because you were with Vik and I was with Julia and we were both happy in our relationships, but the thought of sharing a home, of building a home with anyone else…

that’s what set me off. I was pissed off that here we were, not even fully moved in yet, and you were already talking about moving in with someone else. ”

“You… That’s why you were mad? I… thought you just really hated teal sofas,” I say with a laugh.

“I do hate teal sofas. It makes me feel like I’m in a Barbie Dreamhouse.”

“What’s wrong with a Barbie Dreamhouse, you misogynist?” I shoot back. “What if I wanted our home to look like a Barbie Dreamhouse?”

He gives a heavy sigh. “Don’t make me say it.”

“I don’t know what it is—” I tease. “But now you absolutely have to say it.”

“If you wanted to live in a Barbie Dreamhouse, then I would live in our Barbie Dreamhouse with you. You’re the only person I ever want to pick out a sofa with, teal or otherwise. And you’re the only person I want to come home to, Barbie or otherwise.”

My heart feels like it’s going to collapse under the weight of all this love.

Another round of sex later, I’m drifting off but not fully asleep, and my eyes flutter open at a gentle tug around my neck.

Zwe’s lifted my necklace so he can trace the phrase on the front.

“Sorry,” he whispers, running the pendant between his thumb and forefinger.

“I just… still love seeing this on you. I know it’s wrong, but whenever you’d go on dates, a possessive part of me would think, She’s wearing the necklace.

That means something. That no matter where you went, no matter which new guy tried to woo you, a part of me was always connected to you. ”

“Zwe Aung Win doesn’t get jealous,” I murmur, dazed and sounding like I’m addressing a room.

I feel the breath of his low chuckle. “Zwe Aung Win does weird, unfathomable things when he’s around you.”

Sleepily, I reach up to hold the piece of gold between my own fingers, and Zwe laces his in between mine. I smile at the warmth, the familiarity, this sense of blindfold me in a sea of people and I could still pick out your hands by touch alone .

I trail a fingertip along every line and curve of the small letters. Little by little.

I tell him, “It’s the truest thing I know.”

All four of our parents had been waiting at Zwe’s parents’ place hours before our plane touched down in Yangon.

Zwe goes to put the key in the lock, but the door opens before he can even reach over.

“I am going to kill you!” Mom yells, crushing me to her. “I’m glad you’re not dead because that means now I get to kill you.”

We had had a serious debate over whether to tell them in advance over the phone or in person, but decided on the former before they could read the news.

“I’m okay,” I say into my mother’s chest. As I inhale her fragrance and melt into her hug, I’m a kid again, leaping over to her at the end of the school day and excited to tell her everything that happened.

“No, you’re not, you’re grounded.”

I pull back and loop my arms around her neck. “You can’t ground me, I don’t live under your roof anymore.”

“Like that’ll stop us,” Auntie Eindra says. She’s got one arm around Zwe. “You’re both grounded. And from now on, you have to share your location with us at all times.”

“I—” Zwe starts.

“At. All. Times,” Auntie says with a glare that means business.

“We love you, too,” I say.

Mom and Auntie both give a harrumph .

“Okay, we agreed to give you both first hug but now you’re just hogging them. Give us our children,” Dad says and waves me over. He hugs me, Uncle Arkar hugs Zwe, they tell us they love us and that we’re idiots and we tell them we know, on both counts.

They try to guilt-trip us into staying for dinner. “Mother! We’ve been traveling for over half a day! I don’t feel human. I just want to go home and shower,” I cry.

“Oh, so you nearly die and you can’t even have dinner with your elderly mother?” She gives a dramatic tut.

“We will have dinner every night this week,” I say, and plant a kiss on her cheek. “I promise.”

On the taxi ride home, I slump sideways onto Zwe’s shoulder. Despite the fact that he’s exhausted, too, as evidenced by the bags under his eyes and his straggly voice, he remains upright and alert.

“Hey, do you think they know about us?” Zwe asks.

“Oh, absolutely,” I say.

“Did you tell them?”

“No,” I say. “But when have we ever been able to hide anything from them? I guarantee you they’re gossiping about us right this minute.”

That gets a tired chuckle out of him. “My mom is the happiest woman on the planet.”

“No, she’s not.” I look up and strain my neck to kiss his jaw. “I am.”

He rolls his eyes. “You are so corny.”

“But you love me, corn and all.”

He gives my thigh a squeeze. “And all.”

The four flights of stairs up to ours have never felt more laborious. When we arrive on our floor and are standing in front of our door, butterflies appear in my stomach. I know this has always been our home, but now it’s really our home. Our home.

Zwe goes in first, finagling both suitcases down the hallway. “I’ll put yours in your room?” he calls out.

“Mm-hmm,” I answer as I turn on the lights.

I look around, feeling my heart glow brighter as I take in everything, from our fridge covered with an assortment of magnets, to the whiteboard by the front door, one half dedicated to groceries, the other to games of Hangman, to the framed snapshots of us at fifteen and eighteen and twenty-five and twenty-nine that are peppered on top of various cabinets and shelves.

And then there are the little things that I can’t see right now but whose mere existence adds to the warmth of this place—kitchen cupboards stocked with our favorite snacks, mismatched plates and glasses that we’ve accumulated over the years at assorted secondhand markets, the mixed scent of my shampoo and his cologne that’s infused itself into our bathroom walls.

All the things that, together, form the foundation of a home. Of our home.

I take a seat on our couch, my grin spreading now that I’m looking at this piece of furniture with new eyes as well.

“What?” Zwe asks when he emerges from putting his suitcase in his room. “Why do you have that goofy smile?”

“We’re gonna have to fix that, you know.”

“What? Did something break?” His head starts swiveling around, trying to locate the fault. “Is something wrong with the fridge? Is there a leak?”

“No, you doofus,” I laugh. I pat the seat beside me for him to come join. As he warily sits down, I lift my chin down the hall where our rooms are. “I mean the two bedrooms situation. One of them is going to be our bedroom now.”

A shy but irrepressible joy unravels across Zwe’s features.

“I like the sound of that,” he says. He takes my hand and kisses the back of it, and already a warmth is spreading through my body.

I’m going in to kiss him on the lips when he starts looking around the apartment again, as though taking a mental inventory stock.

“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs occasionally, his head bobbing in a slight nod.

“What?” I ask.

“Oh, just—” He flashes me a wicked grin. “—making note of every spot in our home where I’m going to fuck you until we forget our names.”

A laugh whisks out of me at that. “Are you just going to have dirty thoughts all the time now?”

“Hey, when you have a girlfriend this hot—” Without warning, he fully leans over, and I let out a small yelp as I’m forced onto my back.

“Yes?” I prompt.

But he doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes dip down my figure, down to the sliver of stomach where my shirt has rolled up. When they come back up and latch onto mine, he licks his lips like he’s going to devour me, and I respond with a small whimper of need.

“I want to taste you,” he says, one hand reaching down for the waistband of my sweatpants but not actually doing anything.

“Yes,” I say. “Please,” I add, to clarify the urgency of this moment, and he laughs as he removes my trousers.

I vaguely recall telling him on the flight that I feel disgusting and announcing dibs on the shower, but Zwe keeps touching, licking, kissing, stroking me, repeating “God, you are so sexy” again and again until I think it myself.

When we’re done, we cuddle facing each other, him wrapping his arms around me, one of my legs thrown over his.

“We’ve never done this,” I say. “Cuddled on this couch, I mean.”

“No,” he says. “I… wanted to, though.”

“I did, too,” I admit through a smile.

He alternates between playing lazily with my hair and my nipples, with the occasional ass squeeze thrown in. “So this is it, huh?” he asks. “You and me?” There seems to be a silent Finally? tucked on at the end.

“Yes.” I kiss the tip of his nose. “This is it.”

“Speaking of love, when do I get to read this romance novel of yours?” he asks.

“Eventually,” I say. “Right now, I’m a little busy living out my own love story. And I gotta tell you, it’s a real good one.”