True North (Bad Idea #3)

by Nicole French

If you had asked me two years ago if I believed in soul mates, I would have said no. But here is a person toward whom, from the start, every cell in my body seemed drawn. I just don’t make sense without him. And I don’t want to, either. The thought reins in my fears. He’s here. I’m here. Together, we can move forward. “Yep,” I call out.

He takes off his hat and sets in on the kid’s head, making him giggle, and Nico laughs right along with him. His

*it

So of course, I kiss her right back, wrapping my hands around her waist and lifting her into my chest. I tease her mouth open to taste her, taste the remnants of coffee and tiramisu still lingering on her tongue. Fuck me, she’s so sweet. Somehow, I have a feeling that waiting for her mom to fly back to Pasadena is going to be harder than waiting an entire summer. Things go from zero to sixty in about two fuckin’ seconds with this girl. They always did.

“I lived almost twenty-seven years loving you, and I didn’t even know you. I spent another year and a half dreaming about you, day and night. Layla, I’ll take whatever you have to give and still be the happiest fuckin’ bastard on the planet. You want to fuck in the nightclub, I’m down, obviously. But if you decide you want to wait until marriage or some shit like that, I’ll do that too. I’d do anything for you, baby. Don’t you know that by now?”

We sleeping in and study together for another

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Her voice, its strength, lets loose some animal in me that’s been dying to be free. With Layla, I am never anything but my purest self. I have no name––I’m barely a man, but whatever I am was made for her, her essence, her body. Made to devour, pillage, ravage, feast on this body that has only ever fit mine perfectly.

“Layla.” His deep voice beckons. “Please tell me it doesn’t have to be rough.” My chest tightens to the point where it almost hurts, but it’s not a pain I hate. It’s a pain I love. This is what it feels like to love someone so much you want to burst. The heart can only take so much, but what I feel for this man overflows any vessel.

this, to open myself to him this way. But at the same time, it’s totally clear. Here, naked with him, body and soul, I am my most vulnerable. No one can hurt me like he can; maybe no one has. But I also know without a shadow of a doubt that he’ll protect me with everything he has. He shelters my heart. He’s more than just a lover. He’s a partner. And there’s nothing for me to fear in that.

If I am his true north, then he is mine. Together, we’ll never lose our way again. ~

“Then it’s either keep trying with a family application for one you,” Ileana says in a resigned, stern voice, “or we need to turn your case over to a lawyer and get you ready for court. You

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“And they’d probably thank us to get the fuck out of the way too.”

Thank us or ask us?

“Yeah, but Nico doesn’t have to go anywhere to find home, Bibi,” I tell her. “Neither of us will. Because his home is me. And mine is him.”

I’ts awful.

Editing..again

subsids,

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But no matter what’s coming, we’ll always have this. We’ll always have us. And that knowledge will keep me going for the rest of my life.

six

Wasnt their place up five flights?

But this. This connection. This outlet. This heat. This love. This is always enough.