Page 76 of Role Play (Off the Books #1)
Still butt naked, he hops down from the truck bed, retrieving a clean cloth from the cab.
I smile into the mattress as he wipes me clean.
When he’s finished, Forrest reclaims me in his arms and repositions us to the top of the mattress.
Reaching down, he pulls a blanket over us, effectively making a cocoon for our body heat to nestle.
On the forgotten screen, the movie continues, casting flickering blue light that dances with the golden glow of the string lights.
I trace idle patterns on his chest, memorizing the texture of his skin, the rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my palm. His fingers comb through my tangled hair, gently working out the knots.
“We have to start the movie over,” he murmurs after a while, his voice barely audible. “I missed everything.”
I prop myself up on an elbow to see his face better. “Good idea.” I peck his chest. “Let’s start over. All the way from the beginning. We won’t miss a minute this time.”
“Not a damn minute,” he muses, eyes on me, not the screen. “We’ll rewrite everything exactly the way we want.”
Look how far I’ve come. The writer who creates love stories but never stopped to write her own. I can’t remember the last time I checked a sales dashboard, or stressed about a crummy review. The last couple months have been too full of meaning to worry about meaningless things.
Forrest agreed to help inspire me to write a bestseller. Instead, he inspired me to live a life.
I nuzzle into him as the opening credits of The Princess Bride play once more. He scoots me closer, tucking my head under his chin, his heartbeat steady against my ear. He rubs my shoulders furiously. “Cold? Should we get dressed?”
“Don’t move a muscle, cowboy. Stay in this moment with me.”
We lie in comfortable silence, limbs tangled, skin cooling in the night air but warmed by our shared body heat beneath the blanket. Above us, millions of stars continue their silent dance across the royal, dark purple sky.
“Thank you,” Forrest says suddenly.
“For what?”
“For another chance to be the real me. For turning a blind eye to what I used to do, and loving me anyway—” He stops short, nearly choking on his words. “Shit, I didn’t mean love , I meant?—”
“I do, Forrest. Isn’t it obvious? I love you beyond reason. I love you so much, I don’t know what it even means anymore.”
“What?” he asks, confusion covering his face.
“It’s too easy to write ‘ I love you ’ in the final chapters of a story.
That’s how it’s supposed to go. There’s a blueprint for romances—act one, then two, then three.
‘I love you’ belongs in the final chapters, but you know what?
Now I see that’s just stories. In real life, we started with love, not ended with it.
It brought us together from the very beginning.
It was the lack of love we were feeling at first, maybe.
Then, the desperate search for love once we got a taste.
Finally, now, the acknowledgment of how we’ve felt all along.
But it was always there, lurking. From our very first dance outside that pretzel cart, love planted a seed. Right now is where it blooms.”
Forrest pauses the movie and stares at me in silence for what seems like eternity.
“I’ll build that house,” he finally says, “if you promise to write another book.” He strokes my cheeks.
“Put your words on page, Sora. Until your dying day, share your heart with the world, not because they deserve it, but because you deserve to be heard. And by the way…” He stamps another tender kiss against my lips.
“I love you, too. More than you can imagine.”
I smile. “If I write that book, and you build that house, what then? What if I write another book after that?”
“Then I’ll build you another house,” he says. “I’ll fill up this entire damn ranch as long as it keeps you writing.”
I press a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. “You’re going to be a busy man.”
He plays the movie, restarting it yet again, then recommits to our cuddle.
“Can I tell you something?” I ask, my voice small in the vastness of the night.
“Anything.”
“I think I could be happy here. In Wyoming, I mean.” The admission surprises even me, but as the words leave my lips, I know they’re true. “Someday.”
I feel him go still, his breathing caught in a lasso before it resumes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I confirm, feeling suddenly shy. “With you and Dakota. If that’s something you might want too.”
His hand comes up to cup my face, tilting it so he can look into my eyes. The kiss that follows is different from the heated ones we shared earlier—softer, sweeter, but somehow fuller. Full of promise, a beginning, a silent agreement to explore this possibility together.
When we part, I settle back against his chest, listening to the steady pace of his heart.
This time we watch the movie through. Actually, I mostly watch Forrest, appreciating the subtle scrunch of his face, or lift of his brows at various scenes.
The movie earns quite a few chuckles, a few eye rolls, and even a cringe when Westley gets slashed open by a sword or giant rat—I’m not quite sure.
But it’s the “ aw” at the end, during the final kiss, that makes me smile.
I might make a romance girlie out of Forrest, yet.
“We should probably head back soon,” he says reluctantly when the credits roll. “Dad will worry if we’re out too late.”
“Five more minutes,” I negotiate, snuggling closer.
His chuckle rolls through his chest. “Five more minutes,” he agrees, pressing another kiss to my hair.
But time creeps by, and neither of us makes any move to leave our starlit sanctuary. The world beyond doesn’t exist. For now, there is only this moment, this connection, this feeling of having found something precious and unexpected.
As I drift toward sleep, wrapped up in Forrest’s warmth, I find myself believing in the kinds of happily-ever-afters I’ve always written about but never quite trusted could be true.
Until now.