Page 66 of The Beautiful Collision
And Maine saw all of it.
The Maine Show. The player. The loudmouth jock. The convenient roommate and an even more convenient fuck. Except I’ve discovered that he’s none of those things, because that’s not who sat on that cold tile floor with me for God knows how long.
He didn’t try to fix me. Didn’t tell me to calm down or that everything would be OK. Didn’t offer platitudes or solutions or any of the useless shit people usually say when confrontedwith someone else’s messy emotions. He just… stayed with me, available for whatever I needed, however much or little that was.
And when I crawled to him—literally crawled across the floor—he just opened his arms and held me like it was the most natural thing in the world. It was the same as when he’d looked after Chloe, like sitting on the floor with broken girls was just another Tuesday night for him.
And it was another example of how he’s everyone else’s rock.
Always the caretaker, never the one being cared for. Keeping everyone afloat even when he’s drowning. And the recognition of that, plus the memory of his solid warmth—it all crashes over me in a wave of longing so intense it steals my breath.
I need him.
Not want.
Need.
The realization should terrify me. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We had rules and boundaries. But somewhere between passive-aggressive sticky notes and mind-blowing sex, between covering each other with blankets and sitting on kitchen floors, those boundaries dissolved.
And now I’m lying here in my bed, every cell in my body pulling toward his room like he’s magnetic north and I’m a broken compass that finally found its direction.
Fuck it.
I throw off my covers and leave my room before I can talk myself out of it. The hallway feels endless even though it’s only a few steps. My bare feet are silent on the hardwood, but my heart is so loud I’m convinced it’ll wake him before I even reach his door.
It’s slightly ajar, a strip of moonlight cutting across the floor like an invitation. I push it open slowly, wincing at the tiny creak of the hinges, then step inside. It’s funny how intimate this feels.He’s seen every inch of my body, been inside me, seen me at my worst… but we’ve always slept apart.
But this?
It feels big, and I don’t even know why.
He’s asleep, sprawled on his back with one arm thrown over his head, the sheet tangled around his waist. The moonlight paints silver highlights across his chest, turning him into something out of a Renaissance painting. He looks beautiful and untouchable and so achingly human all at once.
This is insane. I should leave. Go back to my room and pretend this moment of weakness never happened. But instead, I move to the empty side of his bed and carefully,socarefully, lift the edge of the sheet. The mattress dips slightly as I slide in, and I hold my breath, waiting to see if he’ll wake.
He does.
His head turns toward me, eyes blinking open with that slow, confused quality of someone swimming up from the depths of deep sleep. For a moment, we just look at each other in the darkness. I can’t read his expression, can’t tell if he’s about to ask what the hell I’m doing or tell me to leave.
Then understanding dawns in his eyes, soft and warm as summer rain.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask why I’m here or what I need. He just shifts, creating space for me, his arm lifting in silent invitation. And I move into him like coming home, fitting myself against his side with my head on his chest. His arm comes around me, solid and sure.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I whisper into the darkness, though it’s so much more than that.
“Took me a while too,” he admits, probably because he’s wrestling with the same shift in our dynamic that neither of us has dared name.
His hand finds my hair, fingers combing through the tangled strands with a gentleness that makes my throat tight. I turn my face into his chest, breathing him in, that scent that I’ve come to associate with warmth and safety. And then I lift my head to look at him looking at me like I’m something precious.
Then I’m kissing him.
This kiss is soft and searching and achingly sweet. His lips move against mine with a reverence that makes me want to cry again, but for entirely different reasons. And when we break apart, we’re both breathing hard, but instead of diving back in, we just look at each other.
Really look.
And what I see in his eyes—the want, yes, but also the tenderness, the care, the something deeper that we’re both too chickenshit to name—undoes me completely. Because it confirms to me exactly what I want, and more than that, exactly what Ineed.
“I need you,” I whisper, the admission scraped raw from somewhere deep in my chest.
