Page 98 of Virago

Never before had she felt like this, and it scared the shit out of her—not the feelings themselves, but the understanding that she could ruin it. Always before, the thought of having to mold her life to the shape of someone else had been like a guillotine, chopping the head from her feelings for that someone. That blade hadn’t dropped with Zaxx; she was more afraid of losing him than losing herself—and that was because she trusted him enough to know he’d never ask her to give herself up.

But relationships meant compromise, and she didn’t know how to structure her life to accommodate his steady presence in it. Where did he fit? How did he fit? The house was like a metaphor for their whole relationship.

She hadn’t told him she was in love with him because this space and shape problem was an unpinned grenade, ready to blow the whole thing up.

When Zaxx moved behind her again, brushing her body with his because there was no room for two people to pass each other easily, and another pop of impatience tightened her neck, Gia flung her hand out and grabbed his arm.

“We need to talk.”

Zaxx froze, then chuckled softly. “There is no way that sentence can sound like anything but the end of the world.”

She gave his arm a squeeze she hoped was reassuring, but she didn’t counter his statement. “Do you have time to talk now?”

He glanced at the clock on the tiny retro range. “I’ll be late, but that’s my steady state lately, so yeah. What did I do?”

“You didn’t do anything, love. We just need to talk.” She picked up her coffee and his tea and set them on the tiny table by the window.

Zaxx brought his plate of English muffins and sat across from her.

“What, G?”

“First things first: we haven’t talked about this, and I’m not telling you now to make you feel any kind of pressure. There’s no expectation that you feel the same way or say it back. I just need to tell you this before I say anything else: I love you, Zaxxon. I’ve never been in love with a man before, which would suggest I shouldn’t know what it feels like, but I guess it’s exactly like hundreds of years of stories promised: you just know. I just know. I love you.”

His face wore a ridiculously bright grin. “Well, fuck. You had me shitting my pants over here, worried you were dumping me. I love you, Gia. My virago.”

She didn’t quite believe them, but the words still swirled around her chest like a magic spell. “You don’t have to say it because I did,” she said before she got caught up in his maybe not entirely true words.

He grabbed her hand. “I’m not. I’ve been chewing a hole in my tongue for weeks now, trying not to say it before you were ready to hear it. I’m in love with you.”

She couldn’t hold a smile back. Weaving her fingers with his, she said, “Okay, good. That’s excellent. But I need us to talk about something that might not feel very loving. I want to figure out what to do about it before it gets in our way. Or maybe it already is in our way.”

He regarded her quietly; something in his look grabbed Gia’s tongue and kept it still.

Then he smiled slightly, a subtle, gentle twist of his mouth. “Is this about living arrangements?”

Stunned, Gia could only blink. She forced two words from her mouth. “You know?”

“That this is a very small house, and that you need time to yourself? Babe, you’re not that subtle about it.”

She laughed. “Sorry. I was trying to be.”

“You have many talents, my love,” Gia’s heart thumped at that endearment he’d never used before, “but a career on the stage is not in your future. I know I’m on your nerves here.”

“You’re not, though! I love having you here like ninety-eight percent of the time. It’s only that little bit left over that I want to kick your ass for being in my way.” When he laughed, she went on, “I’m a cranky bitch, I guess.”

“You need privacy sometimes. You need a place to work where nobody else ever touches your shit. That’s not bitchy, G. It’s just a boundary. I like being on my own a lot, too. I like not having to match energies with anybody else sometimes. Fuck, a dog was my best friend. Maybe someday we move in together, and we find a place where we have both our own spaces and space to be together. We could have separate bedrooms, if you want, and sleep apart sometimes, whenever we need some time to ourselves. Why not that? Who says every single part of our individual lives has to be lived in the exact same space, in the exact same way? When did the world collectively decide that being in love meant fusing ourselves together?”

Separate bedrooms was more space than she thought she’d ever need, but if he wanted that, she could imagine it working—together when they wanted to be, some distance when they needed alone time. Anyway, the more important thing he’d said—the most important thing—was when did the world decide that being in love meant fusing ourselves together?

So much relief filled Gia, she half thought she’d float up from her chair. “So what do we look like, then?”

“I don’t know. We’ll figure that out when it’s time. For now, when you need your own time, just say so. I’ll do the same. We’ll hang out here when we want to be together—or, you know, you could hang out at the clubhouse with me, too.”

She’d avoided that because she didn’t ever want to do the Walk from the clubhouse. But she and Zaxx had been together long enough to be considered established. They were, in fact, in love. It was not possible to do the Walk when she’d spent the night with her boyfriend.

“Okay,” she said. “Someday, though, we’ll need to figure out what the next thing looks like.”

“You mean us actually living together?”

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