The Game Changer

by Lana Ferguson

“You remembered my drink?” His brow arches, looking even more confused. Like I’m the silly one for thinking him remembering something as arbitrary as a disgustingly sweet drink I used to indulge in once a week over a decade ago is unfathomable. “I…yeah?” I actually feel my heart beat faster. That’s when I realize I’m in real fucking trouble.

Her mouth twitches in a smile. Her smile causes the cute little dimple she’s always had to deepen, and I’m struck with the realization that while it used to make her face more babyish, more angelic even—now it just accentuates how stunning she’s become. It makes me feel strange to acknowledge that, even in my head. Not that it’s kept me from noticing, because fuck have I noticed.

“Well, go on,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Talk French to me.” I say it as a joke, mostly, which means I could never anticipate the way my pulse quickens when she opens her mouth, sounding every bit a native to the French tongue in my very limited experience as her soft tone shapes softer words. “Tu es mignon avec tes longs cheveux.”

The man is sex on legs. Always has been, really. The years have only made him better. Ian Chase ages like Gouda, and I love me some fucking cheese.

I’m holding my breath as Ian stares, his expression more locked up than Fort Knox. I’d give a whole tit just to know what he was thinking right now.

Ok this made me laugh

“I see you, Lila,” I tell her quietly. Her hand trembles in mine. “Took you long enough.”

“Let me be clear,” he says firmly. “I have been thinking about this for a lot longer than I probably should have. Fuck, since the moment you waltzed back into my life. Do you know how shocked I was that day in the studio? That the girl I cared for so much growing up turned into this gorgeous woman I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about? Because I haven’t, Lila. I don’t know what it means, and I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but I haven’t stopped thinking about you for weeks now. And I can’t think of a single fucking thing I want more than to know what your mouth tastes like.”

“You like that, sweet girl?” Oh wow. My imagination should be fired for never offering up that little gem.

“You’re going to ruin me. Aren’t you.” My smile is soft now. “I sure fucking hope so.”

“Maybe if you’re good today…I won’t have to spank the brat out of you.”

Before I knew what it even was to feel something for somebody, I felt things for you. Whether it was just feeling safer when you’re around, or looking for you when I enter a room, or doing whatever I could to make you smile because it made me smile when you did…It’s always been you, Ian.”

I realize that just looking at Lila puts me at ease, makes all the noise in my head quiet and all the worries I’m constantly juggling seem less important—and I wonder if it’s normal to feel this way for someone so quickly, or if our history has somehow paved the way for these feelings. If the protectiveness and the friendship I’ve felt for her all these years were only holding the door for something more. If it was inevitable that I would wind up here.

Lila is like lightning on the sand—bright and powerful as it strikes, obliterating all the tiny grains of scattered pieces that feel so disjointed and unsettled and creating something new, leaving something more beautiful behind in its wake. That’s what Lila’s done to me. Taken all my pieces that didn’t fit and molded them into something beautiful. Something that’s hers entirely.

“But he’s better than Etienne, right?” “The rat from Ratatouille would be better than Etienne,” he huffs.

The emotion that swells inside me feels too big for my body; it feels like the impossibility of everything you’ve ever wanted but never thought you could have all culminated into one explosive thing that can’t be contained by one person. And maybe that’s why love is better shared, I think idly. Maybe love can only truly be held by two people, because it’s too big for just one.