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It’s always been you .

Fitz feeds the words into my mouth. He buries them into the skin of my neck. His hips rolling against me try to nudge them deep. All at once tries to get me to believe them, and he does so by trying to steal my senses, sending them into overdrive. I can’t seem to feel, to taste, to think of anything but him at this moment.

“I love you,” he pants. “I’ve always loved you.”

And still, I fight it. Because never in my life has love come unconditionally. It’s only come with a noose.

“None of this is real.” I barely push out the words, but don’t push him away.

“That little whimper you let out sounded pretty real.”

He took my hearing as well. I didn’t even know I made a sound.

Fitz drags his mouth from mine, skimming over my chin until he dips into my neck. “That one too.”

The next noise I let out when I feel his hardness against me I definitely have no issue hearing. I’m not sure anyone else in the schoolhouse or the greater Boston area would have any issue either.

“We have… to stop.” I arch my back into him as I mewl.

“So stop,” he challenges.

But I don’t. “Someone could hear us.”

Fitz bites at my earlobe. “Stop pretending you’re the good girl who cares what anyone else thinks.” He slides a hand up my thigh, my dress making it too easy. “I fell for the bad girl. Give her to me.”

I lose my mind. I grab Fitz’s belt, but he quickly pulls away entirely. My whimper sounds between us, but the whine changes quickly into a squeal when Fitz picks me up and sits me on the metal table that’s been pressing into my back.

“I want to show you,” he breathes out heavily, and his forehead finds mine. “Once again, that I want nothing . Will you let me, Parker?”

He cups my bare knees, waiting.

God, I don’t want to. I need to let him.

I manage a nod and slowly, Fitz glides his hands up my legs, beneath the opening of my dress. Every inch of my skin his hands cover heats up until he grabs the lacey band of my underwear, tugging it down.

“Fitz…” I can’t focus. Not on his touch, his words, or the way he’s staring at me, like I’m the most important thing.

Like I matter to him just because.

“Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of this?” He extends a leg, bringing over a stool and dropping onto it before he yanks me forward on the table and tugs my underwear down. The cool metal is a heavy contrast to the heat of my skin.

Fitz leaves the softest, most delicate kiss I’ve ever felt against the inside of my knee.

“Since forever,” he whispers before his mouth creeps up.

And up.

And up.

“God,” he whispers. I both hear and feel the way he inhales me. “You were worth the wait.”

I’m propped on one elbow, but I bring my free hand off the table, fisting my fingers in his hair when he runs his tongue up and down my slit.

“Fitz…” I do anything I can to keep myself from shouting, but it feels next to impossible, no matter how hard I bite my lip, or clench my teeth. Not when he begins painting circles around my clit with his tongue. “Fitz, you…”

“Yours,” he lifts his head to whisper his command. “Say, Fitz, I’m yours .”

“I’m yours. I’m yours,” I pant, my head falling back when he returns his face to between my legs, his lips finding my clit again while a finger teases my slit.

Fitz groans against my center. “Louder, Parker.”

“God, I’m yours.”

He bunches my dress, lifting it higher and removing his mouth once more. I fling my head forward, finding Fitz’s eyes darker, masked in desire as they focus on me.

“Say you’re my wife ,” he snarls, and before I even process, he stalls the movement of his fingers.

“I’m—” I pause to whimper. “I’m your wife.”

Fitz hums. “Good girl.” His fingers resume their movement. “Keep saying it.”

I’m your wife.

I’m your wife.

I’m your…

I become incoherent as I peak, clenching my thighs against the sides of Fitz’s face, and it’s only his name I call when I come, convulsing into his mouth and around his fingers as I collapse fully on the table. The scruff of Fitz’s face rubs against my thigh as he lays his cheek there.

“Say you’ll be mine—be my wife— forever.” It’s impossible to ignore the longing in his voice.

But it’s too much. I lean to the side. I can’t look at him.

It’s one long painful moment of silence before the wheels of the stool Fitz sits on squeaks as he glides back, tugging my dress down. He lifts my hips to slide my underwear back into place.

I push up onto both elbows, finding Fitz raising his shoulders before dropping them in defeat, my desire still glossing his lips. He stands, waiting for me to move, to come to him, to be his .

My legs tremble. The weight of the week, of uncovered, heartbreaking truths, keeps me in place. Because now his feelings are unconditional, when he thinks the narrative only involves personal revenge. But now, it involves so much more and I’m terrified it will be too much. I’m terrified I will be too much and all that love? He’ll take it away.

It’s all so much it nearly breaks me. And still, I don’t go to him. I don’t say a word, but my silence draws more from him.

“I want nothing from you, Parker,” Fitz whispers backing away toward the door. “Just for you to believe my heart has always been yours.”

* * *

My hands shake as I do my best to put myself back together. It’s not an easy task. I dampen and fold a rough paper towel, carefully wiping the mascara that’s run below my eyes, and refold it to clear off around my mouth where my lipstick has smudged. But nothing will wash the unshed heartbreak from my eyes.

Opening my small bag I haven’t used since I went to Florida, I search for my lipstick to reapply. I shift around the pack of gum and hand sanitizer, pulling the tube out before I pause and reach in for the only other thing I carry.

The missing puzzle piece.

My heart? It stops, completely resets, and I feel it, the way it isn’t totally mine anymore.

I fist the small piece, shutting my bag and grabbing Fitz’s jacket before I flee the bathroom door and trudge through the hallway down toward the door we entered.

I think about our engagement party, about the look on Fitz’s face that made me realize he had been looking for me all the time I was gone. Among the faces of old teachers and people I walked this campus with, I’m searching for that look again.

“You disappeared.” Cam comes up beside me. “We didn’t finish our conversation.”

Earlier, there wasn’t anything more important than that conversation.

But now, there isn’t anything more important than Fitz. Because the truth is, I’m not sure I can do anything more without him. He’s a piece of me, after all. He always was.

“Have you seen my husband?”

“Not since he walked out with you before,” Cam says. “Trouble at home already?”

“We aren’t done talking. Give me your number. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I wait for him to fish his business card from his pocket before I turn, my eyes still searching for Fitz.

“Parker?” Camden waits for me to face him. “If you’re serious about this, you better be ready for war. And tell that husband of yours, I want tickets when the Rebels play the Chiefs.”

I quickly clamber away, weaving through a sea of stares as I make my way to the edge of the lawn where Agent Samuels waits on the pavement. “Have you seen Fitz?”

“Mr. Rhodes said he was taking a separate ride home. He walked to the main entrance about fifteen minutes ago,” Agent Samuels informs me.

“And you let him? He’s my husband .”

Agent Samuels begins to follow me as I make my way down the steps. “Ma’am, the President and First Lady confirmed our directive only includes you. Not Mr. Rhodes.”

I begin to pick up the pace. “Well, my directive is don’t follow me ,” I snap over my shoulder before looking out at the lush grass making up the campus square that students were forbidden from crossing through, told instead to use the path.

But I’ve never been good at doing what I’m told. And I need the shortest route to get where I’m going in case there’s a chance Fitz didn’t leave.

“Ma’am—”

I begin to run, my fisted hand holding the puzzle piece keeping Fitz’s jacket and my bag secure against my chest while I cross the grass, making my way past the Art Center, and onto the path that leads to the fields.

My head flings left and right. There’s no sign of Fitz. I haven’t given up total hope yet. Because if he’s where I think he might be, he’d be tucked out of sight.

I expect to come face-to-face with the chain-link fence that once surrounded the track and football field, but I find it gone. I guess after I left, there wasn’t any more riffraff to keep out.

Even though I’m not sure if Fitz is here, a smile graces my face when I step onto the field, remembering how we had sprinted across it that night hand in hand. The muscle memory I didn’t know I still carried hits me, and my fingers fiddle and flex, searching for him.

When I get to the bleachers, I close my eyes for a second, trying to remember how many steps we took before I walk around and duck beneath them.

Six. We had only made it six.

Crouching, I make my way inward toward the center.

“Fitz?” I call out as I drop down, sliding into the small space between the metal steps. “Fitz, are you down here?”

My question goes unanswered when I finally slide successfully into the space underneath the bleachers.

I should frown, but when I turn on my phone’s flashlight and see the black writing farther down, I find myself smiling.

My eyes set themselves to trace my handwriting, to see ourselves encapsulated as rebels who broke into school overnight and vandalized a place no one would ever really see with our legacy. But we knew it was there. That’s what mattered.

As I get closer, I realize more writing has been added beside my contribution. My face falls as my chest cracks, the aching pieces bringing the pain to my gut one by one.

Wished I wasn’t chicken and kissed you that night. Been waiting four months for you to come home. Still waiting.

Rebels Only.

My attention is only pulled from Fitz’s handwriting when something crunches below my sneaker. I look down, using the light from my phone, and retrieve my name tag with a trembling hand before I look back up, tracing Fitz’s handwriting he added next to mine at some point.

I don’t know if Fitz came back to this spot five times or fifty. I don’t even know if I’ll ever have the right to ask.

But what I do know is he showed up for me. It doesn’t matter if it was once or twice because he was the only one who ever did.