Page 107 of Bad Habit
“Mac, you’re a good man. The fact that you don’t believe it—to me that’s more evidence of how you’re good. It shows you’ve got a conscience. That you see your mistakes.”
He shook his head, but I wasn’t giving up. “Mac, we’re so alike.”
He looked at me like I was crazy.
“I mean it. Our actual experiences may be different, but both of us let our parents dictate our lives, who we were going to be. Can’t you see? Can’t you see that our meeting helped both of us figure that out? Turned us into the people we were always meant to be.”
He drew in a long breath, and I could tell he was thinking. Or at least, I hoped he was thinking about what I’d said.
“Mac, you may have done some bad things in your life, but that doesn’t define you. And it’s in your past. Everything you’ve shown me—how you treat others, treat me, treat everyone except maybe yourself—shows your real character. It shows the man you are inside, and Cormac Downey, I love that man. I love him with all my heart.”
His eyes softened along with his tense posture, and so I kept going. It was now or never.
“You’re the only man I’ve been with, that’s true, but you’re the only man I ever want to be with. Sure, maybe some day the pain of losing you could lessen, and I might meet someone else I could love. I do understand that it’spossible, but what I know forsureis that even if that happened, I’d never stop loving you.”
Out of breath, heart pounding, I glanced down. “But if you don’t feel the same way—”
He grabbed my face with both hands and drew it toward him. Then, holding me there, our foreheads touching, our lips and eyes inches apart, we breathed together for a long time, as if trying to absorb one another, to become one.
Then he kissed me. He kissed me in a way that was hard and soft all at once, in a way that made my knees buckle and desire pool between my legs. He kissed me in a way that made me know that I’d never tire of kissing Mac—all day, every day for the rest of my life.
“Is this real?” His voice was deep and thready.
“I hope so.”
“Me too, because, Faith…” He drew a long breath. “When I came to see you today, I didn’t expect this, I didn’t even let myself dream… I don’t deserve you.”
I caressed the side of his face, warm from the sun, warm from inside.
“Faith, I love you, so much. So much it fucking hurts. Sorry, I’ll try not to swear so much.”
“Swearing? I didn’t hear that part. All I heard was—”
“I love you!” he shouted. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He swept me back into his arms and we kissed.
The basketball court—the city, the state, the whole world—melted away. There was only Mac and me and our lips and our bodies, how they were joining and the delicious anticipation of how I knew our bodies would join later, him thrusting inside me so deeply we’d always be one.
“Get a room!” A voice broke into my delirium. “At least get off the court!”
A basketball bounced toward us, and Mac lunged to protect me from its impact.
“This one of yours?” He turned the ball to reveal the letters written on it in permanent marker.
I nodded.
“Then let’s get out of here. Find somewhere private?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
And it was a plan. A very good plan. And I knew it was a plan that would keep us both on track, the right track for the rest of our lives.
