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I feel such a sense of accomplishment, winning that smile. I retract everything I thought about him not really being handsome. Because when he smiles, he is. He so is.
I can’t go on a date with Canon Holt with a furry pussy. What if we… my brain explodes at the thought of sex with that huge man. He would break me.
a director like him saying I’m fantastic as I am—I need to savor this. Roll it around in my mouth like candy. Suck on it for a second and swallow all the affirmation hidden at the center.
I didn’t see that light until I saw you perform a few weeks ago. I want it. I want that light. I want that heart and that vulnerability and strength. There is so much inside you, Neevah, and I’m warning you now that I want it all.”
Taking care of the cast is my job, but I’m not sure how much longer I can pretend that the way I think about her, am attuned to her, want to be around her, is about the job. I need to cling to that excuse for as long as I can.
“You know,” I say after a few seconds, “I think it’s my favorite, too.” “What must that be like?” she whispers, her gold-flecked brown eyes dark and deep and curious. “To be your favorite?”
I can imagine his reasons for keeping things platonic between us. He doesn’t have to articulate them. I’m not that obtuse, but I want to tell him I don’t care. I don’t care about the power dynamic.
If I could say all of that, I would, but I don’t think I have to. I pour it into my eyes and let the anticipation flow from every part of me. If he can read me as well as he claims, he’ll know. If I’m glass to him, he’ll see.
We would run wild through fire. I’d be mindless, my hands everywhere and our clothes flung to far corners. I’d trap her against a wall with my body and beg her to bite me, to break the skin.
“Do you want to know?” She scoots an inch closer, her skirt rising higher and revealing the edge of her black panties. “If I would give you everything?”
I don’t need this to advance my career. And this isn’t some misplaced hero-worship actor-director complex. I like you. I respect you. I want to know you. I want to fuck you. Any questions?”
I’m glass to him, he said, and he searches my eyes like he’s peering into my head, turning my soul over in his hands. I don’t even want to think about what he sees in my heart.
I can’t remember a time in my life where I felt like this. This happy. This satisfied. This starved. This possessive. Every emotion seems to be exaggerated with Neevah.
“Can I tell you something?” he asks. Our bodies are so close, his words rumble into my chest, and for a moment, it feels like he’s knocking on my heart. He can come in. As much as I’ve fought it from the moment we met, he’s probably already inside.
After the urgent, feral coupling, it’s a cherishing hold. I cross my arm over his at my waist and tangle our fingers. It’s fragile and sweet, this moment, like flakes of sugar disintegrating on your tongue when you’ve barely had time to taste.
“Well, you did practically drag me out of the production team meeting by the hair,” I say, allowing a teasing note into my voice. “I didn’t.” “I mean… it was a little growly, mine, claim-y.”
Canon’s pleasure fed mine. The taste of him, the blissful agony on his face when his control broke, the rough tug of his fingers in my hair.
You could easily mistake his fierce scowl and tight lips for anger, but I see it for what it really is. For once, he’s not opaque. I see right through him. I see his fear.
I don’t know what those test results will tell us, but I do know what it’s like to walk a hard road with someone you love. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.
Hope lures you from safety, makes you dream again of things you thought impossible. It coaxes you out of your fears. Forget mercury or arsenic. Hope is the most dangerous element in the world.
It’s hard to compartmentalize—to focus on this one thing and not worry about this other thing when this “other thing” is the woman I love navigating a life-threatening illness.
Something close to distress flares in her expression. Everything in me wants to growl that she is mine and I am hers, and I won’t tolerate closed doors and bathrobes between us, but I don’t want to misstep. I miss her. I miss us together.
“Yeah, because one implies that I don’t want you unconditionally, and the other implies you don’t trust me to.”
“I’ve never been perfect.” “You are for me, and it has nothing to do with how smooth your skin is.”
“Is this some kick-him-out-before-he-has-the-chance-to-leave shit? Because if so, try something else. I will not be disposed of. You hear me?”
“Don’t,” I tell her, the one word ragged on my lips. “Don’t you dare think I see you as any less beautiful than I ever have or that I want you less.”
“I can’t leave because there’s nowhere else to go. So it won’t do you any good to drive me away, though I can see you tried tonight.”
I want you to find someone you love more than your art.
I didn’t fully understand what it would mean for me, who you would be to me, but I saw that light and wanted it.” He nods to the screen. “I wanted it for Dessi Blue, and though I wouldn’t admit it, I wanted it for myself.”
Forgiving is harder than forgetting. Forgetting would be the oblivion of never knowing how you hurt me. Forgiving is accepting you hurt me, deciding that I’m going to keep loving you anyway.”
I realized I loved her just before I realized I could lose her, and that has tortured me.
“Baby, loving you and wanting to fuck you all the time are inextricably tied together.”
“What you’re not gonna do,” Neevah says, squeezing, pulling, “is fuck me like I might break.”
We pound out a rhythm of you are mine and I am yours. And mine and mine and mine and mine. And yours and yours and yours and yours.
“I love her and it feels like the strongest thing I’ve ever had. At the same time, it feels like the most fragile.”
“You look at me the way your mom looked at sunsets.”
“Mama always said waiting for sunsets was like waiting for a miracle you knew would come,” he says, his voice graveled with the emotion in his eyes. “How happy she must be to know I finally found mine.”
“Neeve, I haven’t even asked. You’re accepting without even letting me get the question out?” “Redundant! Why else would you be on your knee holding a ring?”
“You’re such a softie,” she whispers against my jaw. “Only for you.” I huff a laugh, sniffing. “That’s what makes it special, that it’s only for me.”
On the surface, she may seem like the last person I should choose because all her life, she’ll face challenges with her health, too. But she’s perfect for me.
She’s the only one who could have coaxed me from those shadows, back out to love again, because the rareness of her makes any risk worth it.
I feel her heart pounding that rhythm life has conspired against us finding. It’s the rhythm of you, me, you, me, you, me. It’s the heartbeat of forever.
