Page 79 of Pieces of Us

“Yeah?” I shift on my feet, feeling stupidly self-conscious. “It’s—uh. It’s got skills and other information too. Like why some recipes call for softened butter. I didn’t know it actually mattered.”

“You’ve read it?” he asks with a little smile.

“A little bit, on the plane ride home.” I feel my face go hot. “I thought maybe—I don’t know. I want to be able to keep you company in the kitchen. Not cook, definitely not cook, but not ruin things either.”

He gently places the cookbook to the side before fisting my shirt in his hands and pulling me down to him. Just before our lips meet, he says, “I told you I love you the other night.”

My heart stutters. “You did.”

“I meant it.”

Ah, fuck. My poor heart might just give up right here and now. “Y-yeah?”

“Yeah.” One of his hands releases my shirt, lifting to cup the side of my neck instead. “I meant everything I said that night, Mais.”

“I—I wasn’t sure. You were pretty wasted.”

“Very wasted.” He laughs softly. “Still meant all of it.”

“Even the…?”

“When I asked you to fuck me? Yeah. Not my smoothest moment, but… still meant it.”

“Okay.” I cup his cheek, running my thumb across his lips until he can’t help but smile. “So, you asked me to fuck you. Or, more specifically, you asked me if I wanted to fuck you after making it clear that you’d like to be fucked.”

His cheeks are bright red by the end of my recounting of his words, but he never looks away from me. “Yes, I did.”

“Well, I’d very much like to fuck you.” I chuckle. “Can’t quite think of anything I’d like more. I’ve sort of been crawling out of my fucking skin the past week trying not to fuck you, actually.”

“Really?” He laughs, a breathy, relieved thing. “I was worried I ruined things since you never brought it up.”

“I was worried I would ruin things by bringing it up.”

He rolls his eyes, but it’s a fond gesture. “We’re kind of a ridiculous mess, you know that?”

“Want to know what’s worse?”

“What?”

I wrinkle my nose with distaste. “Dr. Singh has been hounding me on how communication is the key to us having a good relationship, and if I’d just communicated better with you, we wouldn’t have spent the last few days both worried about fucking everything up.”

“Which means Dr. Singh was right,” he concludes, wrinkling his nose as well. Don’t get me wrong, we both like the man. He’s helped us a great deal, too. But who likes admitting their therapist was right? That’s no fun at all. “Want to know something even worse than that?”

“What?”

“We could have been having sex these past two days.”

I groan. “We are idiots.”

“Complete idiots,” he agrees with a bright smile. “Shall we rectify the situation?”

Something inside of me quakes at the sudden realization that this is it. Holy fuck, this is it. All of the humor fades, replaced with the seriousness of this moment. There’s a very good reason why I’ve been avoiding it, all jokes aside. This has the power to break us.

I bring my other hand up, framing his face completely now. “Are you sure?”

“Not at all.” He laughs, but there’s a slight hint of hysterics to the sound. “But I don’t think I’ll ever be sure until I just… try. And I’m sure that I want to try with you.”

“Okay.” I bring my forehead to his, breathing him in. “Then we’ll try. I’d love nothing fucking more than to try with you, Nol.”

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