46
West’s bedroom is perfect during the full moon. The light casts through the windows as he lies me on his back.
“Where were we earlier?” he mumbles against my skin.
I point at my lips. “You were kissing me here.” He kisses me. I point at my neck. “And here.” He kisses my neck. I lift my shirt up. “And here.”
His gaze meets mine as he takes his shirt off. “This was off, wasn’t it?”
I nod, grabbing his shoulders. “I love how attentive you are.”
He kisses my stomach. “And I love how you remember exactly where we left off. What do I kiss next?” He’s looking up at me, kissing the top of my jeans. “Hmm?”
A deep pulse between my legs gets heavier. He rubs me through my jeans and says, “May I?”
“What?” I ask, getting lost in his touch.
“Take these off?”
I nod.
He unbuttons my jeans and pulls them off my legs. He drops them on the ground and pulls my shirt over my head.
“Liv,” he breathes, taking me all in.
I point my toe at his pants. “Take these off.”
He listens, throwing them with mine.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says, leaning down and kissing me.
This time he doesn’t take it slow. He shows me how much he doesn’t believe I’m here as if I’m going to slip away.
He unhooks my bra and kisses my chest until I’m moaning into the night sky.
I grab him through his boxers, excited that we finally get to touch each other again.
We’re watching each other, seeking permission through body language.
He pulls my thong to the side and feels how wet I am.
“Liv,” he moans into my mouth.
I tug his boxers down, taking his full length into my hands. “West,” I say, clenching. I pull him towards me and nod.
With my thong still to the side, he presses against me, and my entire body heats. He pushes into me, and I arch into him, moaning his name.
He works his hips, thrusting into me. He’s holding my shoulders to keep me in place. It’s hungry, starving, and everything I didn’t know I needed.
When he makes me come, he follows right after. And then before I know it, I’m falling asleep in his arms.
I don’t know what I did to deserve this kind of happiness, but everything in this moment is perfect, and I pray that it stays this way.
He kisses my hair, and I lean into him, allowing my exhaustion to take over.
The U-Haul looks smaller in the morning light, but it still takes us three hours to unload everything.
Three hours of carrying boxes labeled “Books” and “Kitchen Stuff” and “Random Junk I Couldn’t Throw Away.” Three hours of West insisting he can carry the heavy boxes while I remind him that I drove a moving truck across three states and I’m perfectly capable of lifting things.
Three hours of making space.
His closet suddenly has my dresses hanging next to his button-downs. My books find homes on his shelves between his hockey biographies and investment guides. The chipped coffee mug from college that I refuse to throw away sits in his cabinet next to his matching set of everything.
“This is so weird,” I say, stepping back to admire our merged bathroom counter.
“What?”
“Just look.” I point ahead.
My toiletries scattered among his. My toothbrush in the holder next to his. My hair products taking up half the shower shelf he’s never had to share before.
It looks like two people live here now.
It looks like home.
“I like it,” West says, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “I like seeing your stuff everywhere.”
“Even my terrible organizational system?”
“Especially your terrible organizational system.”
I lean back against his chest and look around the bathroom that’s now ours. At the evidence of our life together, mundane and perfect and real.
“I can’t believe I actually did this,” I say.
He turns my chin to kiss him.
I continue between kisses. “I broke my lease. I said bye to my parents. I drove over seventeen hours to move in with my boyfriend. And I did all of that without telling you.”
“Regrets?”
“The opposite of regrets.”
“What’s the opposite of regrets?”
“Certainty. Like, bone-deep certainty that this is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Good. Because I’m pretty sure I would have died if you didn’t move in soon. Like really would have.”
I kiss his hand wrapped around me as we stare at our things mixed together.
He kisses the top of my head, and I feel something settle in my chest. Something that feels like peace.
By evening, the U-Haul is returned, and my car is in his driveway next to his and we’re standing in the kitchen trying to figure out what to make for dinner.
“I have pasta,” he says, opening cabinets. “And... some kind of sauce.”
“That’s not how cooking works.”
“That’s exactly how cooking works.”
“West, you can’t just throw pasta and sauce together and call it a meal.”
“Watch me.”
I grab the ingredients from his hands and start actually cooking, adding garlic and herbs and vegetables like a person who understands that food should taste good.
“This is why I needed you to move in,” he says, watching me dice onions. “So I could eat actual food instead of protein bars and takeout.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“No. But it’s a good reason.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“So I could wake up next to you every morning. So I could come home to you every night. So I could stop feeling like half of myself was missing.”
“That’s very romantic.”
“I’m a romantic guy.”
“You’re a hockey player.”
“I’m a romantic hockey player.”
“That’s a rare breed.”
“I’m a rare guy.”
“You are.”
He turns on music while I cook, something soft and jazzy that makes the kitchen feel like a restaurant. When he pulls me away from the stove to dance, I let him, even though the onions are going to burn.
“The food—” I start.
“The food can wait.”
“It’ll burn.”
“Let it burn.”
“West.”
“Dance with me, my girlfriend.”
“In the kitchen?”
“In our kitchen.”
Our kitchen. I like the sound of that.
We sway together between the counter and the stove, and I can smell dinner cooking and his cologne and the faint scent of the candles I lit earlier.
“I love you,” I say against his chest.
“I love you too.”
I say in disbelief, “I’m really here.”
He replies like he can’t believe it either, “You’re really here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good. Because I’m not letting you go.”
Later, after we’ve eaten dinner and cleaned up and watched half of a movie we’re both too distracted to follow, I take his hand and lead him down the hall.
To our bedroom.
To our bed.
“Liv,” he says when we reach the doorway.
“Yeah?”
“Are you sure?”
“About what?”
“About this. About us. About everything.”
“I sacrificed a lot to be here, West. I think I’m sure.”
“I just want to make sure you’re not going to wake up tomorrow and realize you’ve made a huge mistake.”
“The only mistake I made was waiting so long to do this.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I kiss him then, soft and slow, and he responds like he’s been waiting for this moment his entire life.
Maybe he has.
Maybe I have too.
We move to the bed slowly, taking our time with each other. There’s no rush now, no fear that this might be the last time, no question about what this means.
This is real. This is forever. This is home.
When he touches me, it’s with reverence. Like I’m something precious he’s been trusted to take care of.
When I touch him, it’s with certainty. Like I know exactly where I belong.
“I love you,” I whisper as he hovers over me, his eyes dark and serious and full of everything I feel.
“I love you too,” he says, and his voice breaks slightly on the words.
What happens next is slow. Deliberate. Intense in a way that makes my chest tight and my eyes water.
It’s the kind of love-making that happens when you know you have forever. When you know you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be, with exactly the person you’re supposed to be with.
When you know you’re home.
“I love you,” I say again, breathless, as he moves inside me. “I love you so much.”
“I love you,” he responds, his forehead pressed against mine. “I love you, Liv. I always have.”
The words become a prayer, a promise, a vow we’re making to each other without rings or witnesses or anything but the truth of how we feel.
Afterward, we lie tangled together, breathing hard, hearts racing in sync.
“That was...” I start.
“So good.”
We fall asleep like that, wrapped up in each other, skin against skin, heartbeat against heartbeat.
No alarms set for early flights. No countdown to goodbye. No wondering when we’ll see each other again.
Just us. Together. Home.
And for the first time in my life, I understand what people mean when they say home isn’t a place.
Home is a person.
Home is the way West holds me like I’m the most important thing in his world.
Home is the sound of his breathing evening out as he falls asleep.
Home is knowing that when I wake up tomorrow, he’ll be here. And the day after that. And the day after that.
Home is choosing someone and having them choose you back.
Home is love that’s worth driving seventeen hours for.
Home is this bed, this room, this man who makes me feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Home is West.
And I’m finally, finally home.