Page 54 of What If It's You?

I bent over, head between my knees, gripping the edge of the plastic bench as the light-headedness barreled through me, a tiny tornado spinning me out of this world and into the next. An image of myself as Dorothy, swept up alongside bike-riding biddies and ahandful of extremely confused cows, flashed into my mind, and I let out a short laugh, the force of it only intensifying the dizziness. It felt more powerful than it ever had before, my fingers and toes were tingling now, and for just a moment I thought I was going to faint, but then…

“Are you getting on?” The same driver was staring down at me from the driver’s seat, her penciled-on brow arched at the exact same angle as she stared at me in a mix of boredom and annoyance. “Because I’m running behind schedule here.”

I glanced up at her, the world slowly coming back into focus as I took long, deep breaths. Her annoyance morphed into a wary frown.

“You alright? You don’t look so good.”

“Sorry…head rush,” I said with a weak smile, pushing up onto my feet and willing myself not to wobble. “Should’ve hydrated more before I went to hot yoga.”

“Mmm,” she said, leaning back in her bucket seat, then gestured at me to board the bus. “Well, hurry up, like I said, I’m behind.”

Gripping the handrail, I climbed onto the bus, swiped my T pass on the sensor, and collapsed onto a bench seat near the front, ignoring the driver’s mutters ofBetter not throw up I don’t have time for that bullshit tonight. As the bus lumbered along the route, I stared at my reflection in the window across from me, the night sky turning it into a black mirror. Long, highlighted hair pulled up into a ponytail, a nubbly black hoodie zipped up over my yoga wear, the Sun Shower logo on the chest nearly worn away. Of all the many bands Ollie had played in over the years, it was the one I’d always loved best.

I reached up to touch my cheek, confirm that I was here, solid,real. The longer this went on, the harder it was to trust…not my existence, exactly, but something nearby? I’d taken for granted that my consciousness and my body were inextricably linked—who didn’t?—and even if I was slipping into more or less the same body, every time it happened I felt a little more insubstantial, a bit lesssure of where the borders ofmereally were. And if I couldn’t fully trust my perception of myself…what might I be getting wrong about everyone else?

Soon we’d reached my stop, and existential quandaries were elbowed out of my head by the anxiety thrumming through me. I hadn’t felt this much need for Ollie in longer than I could remember, and it was impossible not to let my thoughts drift toward darkness.Is the Ollie I think I know even real, or is he just someone I’ve invented? Someone who could slip away as easily as I have?

I lingered on the stoop in the cold for what could have been thirty seconds or an hour, desperate to see him, to feel him, but terrified that he wouldn’t be there, that the hole I’d left behind when I’d been ripped out of this world and into another had grown, the edges too frayed to hold the shape, the fabric of my life unweaving itself in my absence.

But when I finally got the courage to open the door, mount the stairs to our apartment, cross the threshold, he was spread along the couch in a stained T-shirt from some “seminal” nineties band I’d never bothered to listen to, headphones on, eyes half-closed, the television on mute, lights flickering over his skin. He smiled softly at something he’d heard, not seeing me yet, and my heart swelled with tenderness so quickly and painfully I thought it might burst through my chest.

Then, seeming to feel my eyes, he turned to me, and the smile unfurled fully, a blossom opening its petals to the sun, and the ache in me was too much to bear, I needed to feel him, to be sure he was solid, that he, andwe,were totally, completely real. Dropping my mat to the floor unceremoniously, I crossed the room in three long strides, crouched over him, took both stubbled cheeks in my hands, and drew his lips to mine, the anxiety of the last hour—and days—alchemized into pure, shining need. Suddenly all I could focus on was the pressure of his mouth against my own, the smell of his skin—cedar and cloves and a musky hint of his pheromones hovering just beneath—the surprise I could feel move through hisbody, then dissipate as he shifted into a more upright position, hands drifting to my hips to settle me fully on his lap, pull me against him…

After a few breathless seconds, he pulled away, heavy-lidded desire warring with curiosity in his rich brown eyes.

“Wow, what happened in yoga?” His eyebrow cocked up. His thumb rubbed slow circles on the base of my spine, sending flickers of electricity out from my center with each turn. I drew in a shuddering breath, pressing my hips down against him slowly, barely managing not to groan. His eyebrow went higher.

“Can’t I want my boyfriend?” I smiled coyly, bending down to kiss him again, nibbling playfully at his bottom lip. He kissed me back for a few tantalizingly slow seconds, tongue flicking over the inside of my lip in the precise way I liked, then moved his mouth to the line of my jaw.

“I’m definitely not arguing against this,” he murmured against my skin. I threw my head back, hoping he’d take me up on the offer of my neck. Before I even finished the thought his lips were moving along the column of my throat, pressing long, lingering kisses to every inch. I gasped as he reached the top of my collarbone, then reached blindly for the zipper of the hoodie and yanked it down, shrugging out of it. “I’m just surprised. Usually it doesn’t get you so…” He exhaled a laugh, a tickle of breath on the delicate skin of my chest.

“You know it’shotyoga, right?”

“Silly me, I thought that referred to the temperature.”

“Only if you’re unimaginative.”

“And what were youi-mag-in-ing…” He drew the word out in time with the slow movement of his fingertip along the inside of my arm, all the way from my shoulder down to the inside of my wrist. I shivered, heat pulsing between my legs as he slowly made his way back up the outside, fingers skimming around to the back of my neck until he was cupping my nape, his lips moving along the grace note of my collarbone all the while. His other hand was stillon the small of my back, and he pressed my hips gently but firmly against him, letting out a softmmmas I slid over his now hard length.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I repeated the motion, grinding over him slowly, relishing the friction of the fabric against my throbbing center, his stiffness tantalizingly close, sliding beneath me like a promise.

“You’re saying you spent that entire hour contorting your body, sweaty in skintight clothes, thinking of the moment when you could run your tongue along the entire length of…a burrito?”

“You know how revved up the promise of burritos gets me,” I purred. I wasn’t sure when our running gag about getting horny for takeout had started, but in that moment what had become so commonplace I almost didn’t register it anymore suddenly felt precious, a little glittering shard ofus,something that had been missing for so long, not just in the other world, but maybe even in this one.

But before I could unpack that, I felt Ollie grin against my neck, then he grazed his teeth along its length until he reached my ear, which he nibbled just-this-side-of-gently, and all of me was tinder that I hadn’t realized was waiting to catch until the crackling glow of lust that we’d been stoking suddenly burst into a consuming flame. I exhaled heavily, a soundless groan, but Ollie seemed to feel it move through me, because within seconds he was easing me away just enough to peel his shirt over his head, smiling slyly at the open hunger on my face as I took him in—reallytook him in. My gaze moved over the muscled planes of his chest, a thicket of dark hair giving his slim body a hint of pure masculinity, then lower, lingering on the dark lines that carved out his abs, the knife-sharp slice of his vee-lines, swooping inward and down, arrows pointing toward his visibly growing desire.

I took a shaky breath and forced myself to climb off him, ignoring the ripping sensation at my center. This was just a grown-up version of the marshmallow test,Better things to come if you delay your gratification just a little while longer.I extended a hand and pulled himup after me, then led him silently through the darkened kitchen and into our bedroom. I left him at the side of the bed just long enough to flick on his bedside lamp, its warm glow skimming along his cheekbones, pooling in his dark eyes like liquid gold. I let myself get lost in their depths while my hands moved to his waistband, flicking open the clasp of his belt and pulling it free slowly. I tossed it onto the floor without breaking eye contact.

His hand moved up to cup my cheek as I unbuttoned his jeans, pulled down the zipper, moved them down over his hips, both of us mesmerized, unable to look away. His breath hitched as I slid his boxer briefs down, then wrapped my hand around him and stroked once, slowly, along his entire length. His teeth caught his bottom lip and for just a moment something flickered across his gaze that I didn’t recognize, a curtain drawn between us. Then his eyes dropped to my chest and, after quickly freeing himself from his pants and underwear, he ran his hands up the sides of my waist, fingers curling over my ribs and beneath the band of my sports bra. His eyes met mine for just an instant, but I didn’t need words to know what he was asking, and I lifted my arms overhead, breath catching in my throat as he tugged the bra over my breasts, the slight chill in our drafty bedroom tightening my nipples to buds.

Ollie bent down and took my left breast in his mouth, tongue moving in a slow, almost lazy circle over the delicate skin, then flicking over my nipple suddenly in a way that made me gasp. I could feel his half-laugh vibrate through me.

“I want you on top,” he murmured as he moved to my other breast, warming it with his mouth, heating every inch of my skin with the deft motions of his tongue. “I want to watch you,” he added as he drew away, my body magneted to his mouth so strongly that my chest followed its movement.

Unable to form coherent words, I simply nodded. Smiling at me from beneath his hooded eyes, he moved onto the bed, watching me openly as I slid my pants off, then the lacy black underwear that this-world-me had thankfully had the foresight to put on thatmorning. Leaving my clothes in a pile at my feet, I climbed onto the bed, moving over him on all fours, sighing as my hair slid over my shoulder, gentle as a caress. Ollie’s eyes roamed my body for several seconds before he lifted a hand to my waist, the other to my cheek.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, you know that, Lo?”

---