I studied him, taking in the strong muscles of his jaw, the slight furrow of his brow, and the way his nostrils flared as he inhaled heavily before slowly releasing it all. I’d slowly come to understand a lot of Henry’s expressions in the time we’d spent together, but I had no doubt there were a million more I’d yet to see, and I wanted to know them all. To understand his every twitch, his every sigh, his every breath. I wanted to be top of the class when it came to studying him, but he had far too manylayers for me to peel back in an entire year, never mind the day and a half we had left.
“You brought me back from the dead, too, you know,” I admitted.
He turned to look down at me, those eyes meeting mine, making me feel special and lightheaded without really doing anything at all.
“Before this trip,” I added, “I don’t think I’d ever really done anything solely for me. Because of you, because of the deal we made, I’ve learnt what I want matters, too.”
And what I want now more than anything is you, not just for tonight, not just for tomorrow, but forever. Is it possible, Henry? Could it happen?
Those were the things I wanted to voice but couldn’t. I refused to hold him hostage to my demands when he’d already let someone else trap him into a loveless relationship before me. If Henry wanted something more after all this, he’d have to be the one to declare it.
We were the wrong people at the worst time.
But we still felt amazing like this.
“If I could do this whole thing again with you, I wouldn’t waste a second pretending I didn’t want you the first time you opened your smart mouth to me,” he practically whispered. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
“I’ll stay until we run out of time, Henry.”
He frowned, bringing his hand up to my face before pinching my chin between his finger and thumb and angling it up to him. “If I could freeze it, I would.”
Before I could respond, Henry lowered his mouth to mine, and we kissed under the stars, making magic with so few words but a million unspoken emotions.
Emotions that terrified me.
We went back to Henry’s apartment that night and didn’t come up for air until the morning, every moment filled with soft stares and hard feelings.
We spent the rest of our time together like that, wrapped around one another, sunbathing in hammocks, with my back against his chest as we watched the sun set, rubbing lotion into each other’s skin until our bodies hummed with satisfaction. We barely left each other’s side, and the girls never once asked me to ditch him or spend more time with them. Bailey and Rhea looked on at us as though we were a love story they enjoyed finally getting to read.
Us being together might have been more public now, but that didn’t mean we wanted to share our time with anyone else.
Then came the day we’d been dreading.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, Henry held his clasped hands together between his parted thighs as he watched me move around my room, collecting clothes and toiletries in my arms before dropping them carefully into my suitcase, not wanting to rush any of it. The sooner I zipped the case up, the sooner it meant us parting ways for good.
We’d barely spoken in the last thirty minutes, the sober mood souring any conversation we tried to have, so when Henry finally broke the silence again, it almost made me jump.
“Do you know if Bailey and Rhea have said their goodbyes to Andy and Jace yet?”
I folded a dress over my arm as I glanced up at him. “I don’t know if they will. Bailey hasn’t spoken to Andy much since the boat thing. She didn’t exactly approve of the way he spoke to us.”
“He’s not all bad,” Henry said quietly.
“I know.” Because I did. I may not have known Andy all that well, but I knew Henry now, and I knew he wouldn’t keep someone inherently bad in his life if he didn’t want to. He loved Andy. Almost too much. He’d put his feelings before his own because of it. “He just needs to learn to be better to you.”
“You’re biased.”
“And proud of it.” I smiled.
He smiled too, but only for a moment before his attention fell back to me folding another dress in half, then dropping it into my suitcase. His soft sigh followed the gentle drop of his shoulders. “I hate all this.”
“Andy will come around,” I assured him.
He looked up at me. “Not him. I hate this. You packing up your things. Knowing you’re not going to be a few doors down from me. Knowing this time tomorrow, you won’t be in my life.”
I froze and stared at him, feeling that familiar ripple of want wash over me at the thought of more.
Then ask me to be in it, Henry. Ask me, and…
