The doors opened, and I stared at the empty hallway for a long time before I stepped out. Long enough for the doors to almost close, to almost save me from making a dangerous decision.
But this was a time I didn’t need to be saved. I didn’t want to be saved.
So I found a strength that had a lot to do with Dutch Courage, but more to do with Heath and I walked out into the hallway, all the way to the door I remembered in stark detail. It was a plain door, of course. But plain things become extraordinary when connected to the memories of someone we loved with all of our being.
Before I could let the thought of him not being alone inside the tiny apartment poison my mind anymore, I knocked.
My hand was shaking as I did so. My heart was in my throat. My breathing was shallow.
Luckily since the apartment was small, I didn’t have to wait long for Heath to open the door.
He opened the door shirtless.
Shirt. Less.
My mouth dropped open.
I couldn’t help it. I had memories of his torso. They etched into my mind with as much definition as his abs. So I’d known his body was good.
And though he’d been clothed since I’d seen him lately, I know he’d gained more muscle. A lot more. And I did fantasize about what exactly the muscle looked like when I was alone at home with my vibrator.
But the reality far exceeded any fantasy.
He was wearing sweats, slung low on his hips, so I could see that delicious ‘V’ that pointed down to an equally delicious appendage.
My core pulsated with need. Hunger. It had been to years since I’d had sex. I couldn’t stomach any kind of romance while I was gone. Not like before, when I’d used some form of lust to pretend I wasn’t heartbroken. The mere thought of another man’s hands on me was sickening. Plus, I was too busy trying to figure myself out to even give someone unimportant my energy.
And every man who wasn’t Heath was unimportant.
I snapped my head up, realizing I was staring at his crotch, not speaking after I knocked on his door at almost midnight.
“I don’t know why I’m here.”
His eyes were dark and not and all blank how I’d come to expect them to be. There was a glimmer of hunger as he roved his gaze up my white sundress, cowboy boots, and denim jacket. My hair was plaited into loose pigtails.
“Didn’t ask why you were here,” he said. He didn’t say anything else.
Neither did I.
We both stood there, staring at each other silently.
I knew this was a moment that Heath was deciding what to do. If he stepped aside and let me in, it was more than in the literal sense, it was a tiny glimmer of hope that he might let me into places other than his apartment. Or if he closed the door, it was the final and heart shattered close to what had turned into a saga between us.
I expected him to close the door. I deserved him to close that door.
The seconds yawned in like years.
He stepped aside.
I was awake for a long time before I opened my eyes. I didn’t want to open my eyes. Because then the person whose arms were tight around me would know I was awake and most likely his arms would not be around me and then I’d have to abandon the fantasy that this could be every single morning.
“Know you’re awake, Sunshine,” a throaty voice said.
Obviously my tactics were extremely flawed.
But his voice wasn’t cold, cruel or detached.
So I opened my eyes.
I’d been using his chest as a pillow, my leg cocked up at his hip and sprawled across his body. Barely any of my body was actually on his mattress.
He didn’t seem to mind since both of his arms were tight around me, clutching me to his body. They loosened slightly so I could move my head to meet his eyes.
“You sober?” he asked.
He caught me off guard, so it took a couple of moments to answer. “Yes.”
“You hungover?”
A strange question, but I took stock of my body. I had a slight headache that was likely more to do with dehydration than a hangover. I’d drank enough to get me tipsy, to give me the courage to come over here, but not enough to take me out of my head. Or to make it throb the next day—though it was still the early hours of the next day.
My memories of the night before were stark and lucid.
After he’d let me in he hadn’t spoken, he’d taken my jacket, his hands ghosting over the bare skin of my shoulders.
My entire body shivered with the simple contact.
Because nothing was ever simple between Heath and me.
I stepped inside the apartment. Barely anything had changed since the last time I was here. There weren’t any photos in the living room. He’d upgraded his television and sofa. The coffee table was the same black glass top. It had a couple of neatly stacked paperbacks on top. There was a laptop open on the sofa.
His kitchen had a couple of new and expensive appliances. The counters gleamed. There was a beer sitting on the breakfast bar. Nothing else. Because it was Heath and he was all about order.
The differences between his stark, empty, clean apartment and my cluttered, mismatched and messy one were comical. Or they would’ve been if they weren’t metaphors for the differences between us.
“Beer?” the offer echoed through the empty apartment.
I turned to see him watching me wander around his living room, looking for something to grasp onto, some sign that he had finally found a home. Found peace.
“No,” I said, my voice a little more than a whisper. “I’ve had enough.”
“You drunk?” he asked.
I shook my head.
He nodded once.
I wanted to say more. To say everything, but even with this empty apartment, there wasn’t enough room for it all. I didn’t have enough energy for it all. Weariness settled suddenly on my shoulders and I struggled to stand under it.
“Tired?” he asked, seeming to see the wave of tiredness that had hit me.
I nodded.
He drained his beer, rounded the kitchen, threw it in the trash and then came to stand in front of me.
“Let’s go to bed then.”
And we did.
Went to bed. To sleep.
He handed me a tee. I went to the bathroom to change and brush my teeth with his toothbrush.
He was in bed when I came out. We didn’t speak. The covers were set aside for me. His eyes held invitation that he didn’t articulate.
I didn’t hesitate to curl under the covers and into his arms.
“Home,” I whispered.
He jerked.
But he didn’t speak.
And I fell asleep.
“No,” I said once my mind had finished going over the events of the night. “I wasn’t even that drunk—”
I didn’t get to finish since Heath hauled me up his body, grabbed the back of my neck and wrenched my mouth down on his. I should’ve worried about morning breath and about how scary I looked with my curls escaping from the braids and wild around my face.
I didn’t think about anything but his mouth on mine and the fact his tee had ridden up, like all the way up since my legs were splayed on either side of his hips and my panties were grinding against a definite hardness between his legs. He let out a fierce growl into my mouth as I moved against him out of instinct out of pure hunger, out of desperation.
He pulled my head back to stare at me in a way that had wetness pouring into my already soaked panties. “I’m not gonna be able to be gentle, Sunshine,” he rasped. “Not now. Not even the second time around. I can’t promise you I will be able to fuck you gentle for a long time.”