Chapter Thirty-Three
Resolutions
The next thing I’m conscious of is that it’s dark and quiet.
In my half-wakeful state, I reach out for Luke in the blackness, but my heart lurches when I find he’s not next to me.
A burst of irrational fear moves through me which can only come with the disorientation of waking up and forgetting where I am.
I call out for him almost involuntarily, sitting up with a start. “Luke?”
“I’m here,” a soft reply comes from behind me, and I flip my head around, searching for the source in the pitch black. He's lying across the room, far enough out of reach where I can’t touch him, but my heart settles anyway. I let out a heavy sigh, some of the panic easing.
It takes another moment for the disorientation to fade before I realize I never stopped to see if we were alone.
Thankfully, it’s only the two of us left in the room.
Everyone else must have gone home or possibly off to one of the guest bedrooms. Someone appears to have put a pillow under my head and covered me in a thick blanket, but I never felt a thing.
When I notice the distance Luke has placed between us, my heart sinks.
It was clearly deliberate, a tactical choice to protect me while we’re out in the open at Marcus’s house.
It should be comforting to think he’s looking out for me.
I can’t help but find it frustrating instead.
The fact that he even had to make that kind of calculation because of me…
when it should have been the simplest thing in the world for him to sleep next to me instead.
If he were a woman, no one would have questioned or made a big deal out of the two of us curling up in each other's arms, even if they didn’t know we were dating.
There wouldn’t be any concerned looks or confusion seeing the two of us together—just knowing smiles and maybe a few raunchy jokes, but also immediate and total acceptance of the fact that we were together.
It shouldn’t be any different just because he’s a man.
So why do I feel like I’m treating it like it is?
“Are you okay?” Luke asks after a moment, his voice soft and nasally.
It immediately draws my attention back to him, and I frown at the words—not for the question, but for how it was spoken.
It almost sounds like he’s been crying. And when he sucks in a staggered breath a moment later, it only confirms my suspicion.
A switch flips in my brain at the sound of his pain, and I feel a surge of possessiveness strike through me like a lightning bolt.
Something primal and instinctual is unleashed, and the need to find whatever has hurt him and wrestle it to the ground overpowers my senses.
I won’t let him continue to wallow in quiet agony.
I drag my pillow and blanket over until we’re right next to each other. Luke bristles slightly at my approach, almost looking like he wants to move away.
“What are you—” he starts, but then gasps as I scoop an arm under his neck, snaking the other over his waist, pulling him back against my chest somewhat forcefully. “Ethan!” he whisper-shouts in disbelief. “Are you crazy? Someone will catch us.”
I don’t respond. I just pull him tighter against me, feeling a little of that possessive anger quell now that he’s exactly where he belongs.
And even though his words proclaim a belief that this is the wrong call, his body language betrays his true desires.
He doesn’t fight me or push me away. Instead, he leans back against me, melting into the curve of my body with ease, the two of us coming together like the final piece in a puzzle snapping into place, revealing the whole picture.
The shape of his body against mine is a refuge that cannot be duplicated.
I inhale his earthen scent as it assaults me, and the subtle sweetness of his lingering cologne eases my distress further.
“Ethan, we really shouldn’t sleep like this,” Luke murmurs, though his relaxed sigh makes me feel like he doesn’t actually want that outcome. He’s speaking it more out of a sense of duty than anything else. “Someone will see us.”
“Let them see,” I say gruffly. This time, I mean it.
Hiding the fact that Luke and I are dating is becoming exhausting, and I don’t like what it’s doing to either of us.
My cowardice and anxiety about coming out have crippled me more than they’ve protected me, and I can see clearly how my fear is tied to something so arbitrary that it’s stupid.
Maybe I don’t have to be ready to shout about it from the rooftops or wave a big banner that says, “I’m Dating This Man!
” in front of a town of small-minded idiots.
It’s none of their fucking business who I’m dating anyway.
But I’m done pretending nothing is going on either.
Fuck the aloof, detached, ‘just friends’ attitude. We’re not just friends.
“Ethan, if someone sees…” Luke tries to protest again.
“Then I’ll gaslight them into believing this was always how things were.” I snort.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’re drunk,” Luke groans, pushing back against me for the first time since I’ve come over here, but I lock my arms to keep him in place, my strength overpowering his tepid will. “You’re not thinking clearly, and I don’t want you to regret it in the morning.”
“I’m not drunk,” I protest, mildly offended. Sitting up, I look him in the eye. It’s impossible to see the fine details of his face in the dark, but his shock is evident.
“You’re not?” He sniffs.
“I barely had anything to drink all night. Like three or four beers, tops.”
He shakes his head slowly with confusion. “But you were passed out drunk!”
“Not drunk. Just really fucking tired.” I sigh, settling again. “Yesterday took a lot out of me. I’m an old man, you know. You’re dating a geezer.”
Luke can’t help but laugh at that, but then he exhales, pensive. “Even so. We should be careful.”
“Mm,” I grumble. “Don’t want to. Besides, I sleep better when you’re next to me.”
Luke scoffs. “You slept just fine over there without me.”
“That’s not true. I fell asleep with you next to me and woke up alone. Ergo, I can’t sleep unless you’re with me… I need you.”
I wanted it to be a lighthearted quip to hide the sincerity behind the sentiment, but the moment it left my lips, it failed to be humorous in any sense of the word.
Instead, my heart jolts at the confession so freely given, the closest thing to an ‘I love you’ that I’ve ever come to with him.
Suddenly, it feels hard to breathe. My heart’s been laid on the chopping block, waiting for the axe to fall.
I'm worried it'll burst with how fast it’s beating.
Luke only swallows in response, but I can sense a string of emotions behind that simple action.
If he recognizes the admission of feeling behind my words, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
Instead, we’re quiet for a few minutes, the only sound coming from the hum of the unfamiliar house around us.
There’s a bead of anxiety in my stomach at the prolonged silence, and I wonder if I’ve somehow said the wrong thing.
After a while, I even wonder if Luke’s fallen asleep with how still he’s gone.
But then he scrubs his face with both hands and lets out a shuddering sigh, and I realize he’s stuck in the pattern of his own thoughts.
Whatever has been bothering him is still there, so close to the surface that I can almost feel it, too.
I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I’ll be shut down again if I ask the question that’s tearing at my chest, but in the end, it doesn’t hurt to try.
“Why are you crying?” I ask quietly, drawing him closer to me.
For a beat, it seems like he isn’t going to answer this, either. I can see him shake his head slightly, and the way he fidgets as he grips my hand tells me he’s struggling to find the words, but then he lets out a puff of air on a sad laugh.
“Nighttime is…hard for me,” he blubbers through a sniff of fresh tears. “All of the shit piles up, and there’s nothing to distract me from it.”
“What kind of shit?”
Luke sighs, the action feeling heavy. “The injustices of life,” he says tersely, and I can tell I’m not going to get anything more than that out of him tonight regarding context. That carefully erected wall is still there, and I don’t know how to break it down.
“Is it always like this for you?” I frown.
Luke shakes his head, and I can hear him swallow. Then he rolls over in my arms until he’s facing me and curls into my chest, nuzzling against my throat, almost like he wants to meld into me. He shudders before he relaxes, breathing deeply.
“Not when I’m with you,” he says softly, almost hesitantly, and his breath against my skin sends a shiver down my spine. “Whenever you touch me…my brain goes quiet. When I’m with you, it feels like home.” Then he barely whispers, “I need you, too.”
With his words, my heart is set alight like a spark to dry kindling.
Heat expands from my chest in a blazing inferno and travels deep into my bones with a burst of sensation, wrapping me in a soothing warmth.
I pull Luke closer, holding him firmly in my arms, and something finally clicks into place.
As I kiss the top of his head and sense how he yields to my touch, understanding awakens deep within my soul, a long-held secret of the universe becoming known to me in a flash of startling clarity.
This man is my soulmate, my match in every way.
He’s the missing half of my spirit returning to me, the completion of my core. With him, I am whole.