Page 72 of The Probability of Us

My breathing gets deeper. He doesn’t pull back to look at me, he just keeps his head buried in my neck as he talks. “Walking away from you completely ruined me. I hated myself so much for what I did I fell into a deep depression. It took some convincing, but eventually I listened to one of my friends and went to see a therapist. He helped me finally deal with all the things I never talked about—all the things I avoided and hoped would just go away but never did. Helped me realize that the way I acted in college, and running from you were because of unresolved feelings I had about my parents’ divorce. That I made a mistake with how I handled leaving last time. That I didn’t communicate the way I should have, and that hiding parts of myself didn’t help us in the end. He helped me finally be ready for this. For us.”

“Thank you for telling me this,” I say, softly, running my fingers up and down his back. It’s different, hearing it from him, hearing everything. My heart aches for our younger selves who both messed up, who didn’t fight for the love we knew we had. Yes, he walked away, but I let him. I didn’t fight for him, for us, the way I should’ve. I didn’t communicate the way I should’ve either. I hid my fears and let them ruin us. He might’ve made the bigger mistake, but my hands aren’t clean either. “I’m proud of you for getting help. For healing.”

“Last time, I loved you with everything I had but I didn’t give you all the parts of me,” he says, finally pulling back so I can see his face. My fingers moved to smooth the pain and worry off his face. “This time, I want you to know all of me, to love all of me, because I still love you with everything that I am.”

“Warren.” My lips curl up into a small smile. “I have always loved every part of you, even when I didn’t know them all. There was never anything you could tell me that would make me love you less.”

“Really?” he asks, skeptically. A real, big grin spreads across his face and my heart kicks into overdrive. He leans down to brush his lips against mine. “What if I told you I killed someone?”

I laugh, shifting beneath him so more of our bodies press together. “The only time I’ve ever seen you angry was when someone hurt me. So that would have to be the reason, and how could I be that mad when you were just protecting me?”

With a smirk, he leans down to press his lips to my neck again. I lift my hips when his hand runs up my leg, lifting the shirt, then hooks into the waistband of my underwear and pulls them down to my knees. I shimmy out of them completely as he removes his own.

“I love that you know me so well,” he whispers against my neck as we start moving together. Each movement is so rhythmic and in-sync, like we’d mastered a piece of complicated choreography, but in reality, we’ve just mastered each other. And there’s nothing better than that.

“I . . . love . . . you,” I gasp out before his lips crash against mine.

As the tempo picks up and our breaths get shorter and heavier, I can’t help feeling that these shared breaths between us are all I need to survive.

It’s not until we’re cuddling and getting ready to fall asleep that I tell him I’m ready to talk about the job offer—that I finally communicate the way we needed to back then. “What happens to us if I don’t take this job? How do we make this work if I’m here and you’re there?”

“Analise,” he says, his touch turning gentle and tender as it encourages me to turn around. His hand rests on my cheek, and it settles the loose wire hovering over the fuel in my gut—stopping me from exploding with worry. “Listen to me, I don’t care where you are in the world. D.C., Hartford, hell if you had to move to Tokyo, I’d wake up in the middle of the night just to hear about your day. I lived without you once and I refuse to do that again, even if it’s through texts and phone calls, I want you. In any way I can have you.”

“Really?” It just slips out, but the warmth from his returning smile evaporates the rest of my doubt. He chuckles and kisses my nose, then cheek, then lips.

“I understand why you’re worried about taking the offer, and I don’t blame you for feeling that way,” he says, but I know what he’s going to say next. I know because I’ve thought about every angle of this, every possibility. “But Peter is not like our bosses at Triniti. It wouldn’t be an issue like it was then.”

But my eyes burn. How can he say that so casually after everything we went through last time?

“Even if I knew for sure that was the case.” I take a deep breath and open my eyes. “I couldn’t accept it without him knowing about us first. I won’t leave it to chance.”

He hesitates, but asks, “Do you want to tell him, or do you want to turn it down?”

“I don’t know yet.” I have worries both ways, but I need to decide what will be best forme. As much as I might want to, I can’t make this decision solely for him.

Twenty-Nine

AUGUST CURRENT DAY (FRIDAY)

Even as a shiver runs through me and goosebumps spring up my bare legs, I can’t wipe the mile-wide smile off my face. My gaze clings to the corner of my desk, and my breath quickens as I remember what occurred there this morning. I let out a deep breath as my eyes flutter closed and my hands rub my bare lower thighs.

Damn him.

Damn that beautiful, perfect man for getting me to wear a dress to work. And without even asking me to.

Ever since he brought up the idea of office sex, the work dresses that had gone long unnoticed in the back of my closet started screaming to be worn. It’s crazy how something that sat like trash in the back of my closet for so long became treasure overnight because the right person was around to admire it.

But the office sex was definitely worth it.

I made up some excuse to get him here early, then locked the door behind us and sealed my lips to his.

I didn’t even care about his smug tone when he whispered, “I thought you said no office sex,” against my neck. Or that I responded, “Only this once,” on a shaky breath that was full of longing for him to pull my dress up faster.

All I remember is how he whispered, “Bossy,” before complying after I’d said, “I can think of many more productive things for your mouth to be doing than sassing me right now.”

I thought if he was heading back to D.C. tomorrow I might as well have some memory to tide me over, but I don’t think I’ll ever work again in this office. I’ll just stare at the corner of the desk where I had perfect, early morning, try-to-keep-quiet sex with my perfect man.

Is this how happy people think?

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