Chapter 13 #2
Elias settles beside me—not too close, not touching, but still comfortably present. It’s nice, easy even. We fall into conversation about school, swapping stories about professors, finals prep, and the chaotic mess that is registering for electives.
“I still can’t believe you’re taking two 300-level lit classes this semester,” Elias says. “Do you hate yourself or something?”
“I think I might,” I admit, laughing. “But I want to finish with options. And both of them cover periods I love. Victorian realism and queer theory in twentieth-century American fiction? It’s like academic catnip.”
He chuckles, tipping his chin toward me. “You’re kind of a nerd. It’s hot.”
I roll my eyes, grinning. “You’re drunk.”
“Only a little.”
We keep talking, low and easy, and for a moment, I forget how tightly wound I’ve been lately. School, the distance, trying to pretend like I’m not already counting the days until I can see Caden again. It’s been weeks. Our last weekend together felt like a lifetime ago.
And then, I feel it.
A shift in the air. Like a string pulled taut behind my rib cage. I straighten, glance toward the entrance, then over to the bar. I don’t know what I’m expecting—maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
But I see him.
He’s standing just off to the side of the bar, half obscured by a huddle of people laughing and waiting on drinks. His cap is low, shadowing his face, and his hood is up like he’s trying not to be noticed, but I’d know him anywhere.
Caden.
My breath stalls. It catches mid-chest and refuses to come back down. The club noise blurs, my pulse kicking up like someone grabbed a volume dial and cranked it all the way.
He’s here.
He’s actually here.
The fuck?
My brain short-circuits for a beat, trying to make sense of it. The last text I got from him was six hours ago.
Caden: Early night. Crash hard. Love you.
It was like he was settling in for sleep, not making a five-hour drive to Louisville. But now he’s standing in this club that smells like sweat and citrus vodka, looking at me like I’m the center of his universe.
He hasn’t moved. He doesn’t need to. Hope punches into my chest, hot and bright. I slide to the edge of the booth, grabbing hold of my jacket as I do, already moving to stand.
Elias touches my arm. “Hey—where’re you going?”
“I just—I need a sec,” I say, not even trying to cover the way I’m staring.
Elias follows my gaze, eyes narrowing slightly. “That your friend?”
The question is gentle, but it makes my skin prickle. “Yeah,” I answer. “That’s him.”
Understanding flickers across his face. Not judgment. Not disappointment. Just something calm and measured. “He came all this way?”
“Apparently.”
Elias nods. “Go, then.”
There’s no edge to it, no bitterness. Just quiet honesty.
Still, I feel like I owe him more. “Elias—”
He cuts me off with a smile. “Theo, it’s okay. I know you said you weren’t seeing anyone, and I’m not trying to push. But… you talk about him like you don’t mean to. That says enough.”
My throat tightens. “I didn’t lie.”
“I know,” he says, kind. “Go.”
I squeeze his shoulder once before slipping from the booth. My legs feel loose and jittery, like the adrenaline’s hitting all at once. The crowd barely registers as I cut through it, my eyes on the one person who never stops pulling my focus.
Caden hasn’t moved. He’s still watching me, and there’s something wild and open in his expression. “Hey,” he says softly.
Just one word. Just that stupid, simple word—and it hits me in the chest like a freight train.
“Hi,” I reply, and somehow manage not to touch him, even though every nerve in my body is screaming to throw myself into his arms, wrap myself around him like my lifeline, and never let go.
He glances around, like he’s checking the space, maybe instinct, maybe nerves, then shifts his weight and nods toward the door. “My car’s outside. Wanna go?”
I don’t even answer. I just nod, move, and follow him through the crowd.
The music keeps pounding behind me, the strobe lights still slicing through the air, but it already feels like we left that version of the night behind.
The drinks, the dancing, the occasionally forced laughter with friends who don’t know half of what’s going on inside me.
All of it slips away as we step into the cold.
Outside, it’s one of those winter nights where everything’s wet but it’s not quite raining. Misty and gray and heavy, like the sky is holding something back. Streetlights buzz faintly overhead, but they don’t do much. It’s too late. Or too early.
The parking lot is quiet. We don’t speak.
When he clicks the lock, his car chirps softly in the dark. Before we even get there, I’m on him.
I catch his sleeve, spin him by the wrist, and press my mouth to his like I’ve got something to prove. His back hits the passenger door with a soft thunk, and he lets out a surprised laugh that turns into a groan against my lips.
My fingers fist in the front of his hoodie—his hoodie, God, I’ve missed this stupid hoodie—and I kiss him like the world might stop if I don’t. Fast and hungry and open-mouthed… the kind of kiss that tastes like frustration and relief and weeks of missing him.
“You’re here,” I murmur against his mouth, breath catching. “You’re really here.”
His hand slides under my coat, fingers splaying wide against my lower back. “Been a while since I’ve seen you tipsy.”
“I’m not drunk,” I lie, and he grins because we both know I’ve had enough to be bold. “Okay, maybe a bit. But mostly I’m just—God, I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” he says, brushing my curls back from my forehead. His touch is so familiar it nearly brings me to my knees. “Get in the car, Theo.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice. Once I’m in the passenger seat, I twist toward him immediately. He’s still got one hand on the wheel, but the other reaches for me like it can’t help itself.
“How long can you stay?” I ask, not hiding the hope in my voice.
“Not long,” he says, pulling out of the lot. His eyes flick toward me. “I’ve gotta be back in my own bed by tomorrow night. Game’s early Sunday.”
Disappointment hits hard, but I nod. “Still… I can’t believe you came.”
“Yeah, well.” He slips his fingers between mine over the center console. “Phone tag sucks. And I needed to see you. Thought I’d surprise you.”
“You did,” I say, voice soft. “Best surprise ever.”
We drive in silence for a few minutes. The city thins around us, turning from clamor to hush.
The windows are cracked an inch, and the February air curls around us, clean and cold.
The buzz in my head from the club, from the drinks, from the ache of missing him, it all starts to ease. I can breathe again.
“I’m alone tonight,” I tell him. “Housemates are all out. You’ve got me for the whole night.”
“Perfect,” he says, voice low and thick, like that means more than I can even begin to process. “I plan to take full advantage.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. Then I glance at him, sobering. “Hey, so… how’s everything going? With the team?”
He’s quiet for a beat, then exhales, like he’s been holding that question in his chest too long. “Good,” he says finally. “Better than expected. I’ve been getting more minutes lately. Couple of guys got banged up, so Coach pulled me into rotation. He told me today.”
“That’s huge,” I say, heart swelling. “That’s so huge, Cade.”
“I mean, I’m not starting. And it’s not guaranteed. But it’s something. They’re saying if I stay consistent, there’s a shot they keep me up through the end of the season.”
“I knew it,” I whisper. “You’ve worked your ass off for this.”
He shoots me a quick look—something soft, like pride edged with disbelief. “Coming from you, that means everything.”
We pull into my building’s lot. He cuts the engine and just sits there for a second, eyes trained on the wheel. I watch him in the glow of the streetlamp—his jaw tight, shoulders tense under the hoodie.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah. Just… tired. The travel. The uncertainty. I don’t want to get sent back down, Theo. I want to stay. I want to belong.”
I reach for him and let my hand rest on the side of his face, thumb brushing his cheekbone. “You do belong.”
He turns into the touch, eyes fluttering closed. “Say that again.”
“You belong, Caden.”
He leans across the console, and this time when he kisses me, it’s different. It’s not rushed. Not hungry. Just… real. Full of everything we don’t say face-to-face often enough.
Once we’re upstairs, the door barely shuts behind us before we’re on each other again.
My jacket and his hoodie hit the floor. Shoes get kicked off.
Our mouths crash together in the low light of my bedroom.
There’s laughter in it, the kind that comes from relief.
From finally being in the same place again.
Caden backs me toward my bed, his hands slipping beneath the hem of my shirt, rough palms against skin. “You feel so good,” he murmurs, kissing down the side of my throat. “You always do.”
“I didn’t know I could miss someone like this,” I breathe. “I thought it would get easier.”
He pulls back to meet my eyes. “Me too. I thought I’d get used to it.”
And then we’re kissing again—open-mouthed, deep, messy in a way that makes my knees weak.
His tongue slides confidently, slowly against mine.
He knows what I like. What makes me gasp.
What makes me melt. My fingers curl into the hem of his tee, dragging it upward, revealing warm skin and the curve of his waist. He helps me strip it off, and then we’re chest to chest.
When he pushes me gently down onto the bed, he follows, bracing himself above me with a smile that’s all trouble. “I’ve got you,” he says, voice thick with promise. “All night.”
“Prove it,” I challenge, grinning up at him, even as my chest tightens around something deeper—need, trust, the ache of weeks apart.
His eyes darken, but it’s not just lust. It’s that quiet, serious focus he only ever gives to the things that matter most. “You think I came all this way not to?” He kisses me again—longer this time. Slower. His hand cups my jaw, thumb brushing along my cheekbone.
“I missed you,” he murmurs into my skin as his lips move lower, trailing across my jaw, down the line of my throat. “God, I missed you.”
I close my eyes and tilt my head to give him more. “It’s been too long.”
“Every time I closed my eyes, it was you,” he says, voice rough. “At practice, on the bench, alone in hotel rooms—you.”
My breath hitches as he peels off my shirt, and then we’re skin to skin, warmth sinking deep between us.
He unhurriedly kisses down my chest, like he’s rediscovering everything.
My body arches beneath him, desperate for more, but I don’t rush him.
I can’t. There’s something sacred in the way he touches me.
Like I’m not just a body, but something he’s choosing—over the game, over the grind, over the walls we’ve had to build.
“Tell me what you need,” he whispers against my ribs.
“You,” I say without hesitation. “I just need you.”
He looks up at me then—really looks—and his eyes go soft in that way that undoes me. “I love you,” he says, like it’s stitched into his breath.
I reach for him, pull him up until we’re face-to-face again, and kiss him. “I love you too,” I whisper back.
The way he holds me—gentle, sure, like I’m breakable but also made of fire—makes me feel both cherished and wanted in a way that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with love.
Our bodies move together like they remember everything.
It’s not rushed this time. Not desperate.
It’s slow.
It’s deep.
It’s the kind of intimacy that feels like confession. Like every press of skin is a vow. Every gasp a promise.
He whispers to me the entire time—soft, hot words that make my heart race faster than my pulse. “You’re beautiful,” he says as his mouth finds my chest again. “I dream about you. About this. About touching you again.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, dragging my fingers down his spine. “You’re mine,” I whisper back. “Every inch of you.”
“You’ve always had me,” he says. “Since that first night we got hot and heavy on your couch.”
I laugh at the memory. “You were wearing mismatched socks and fell asleep on my thigh.”
“Best nap of my life.”
His mouth finds mine again, and the kiss deepens, hands tangling, bodies moving in a rhythm we haven’t forgotten, even after all these weeks.
Every sound I make, he answers with a kiss or a gentle word.
Every touch he gives, I echo back in kind.
And when he finally settles over me, pressing into me with a kind of reverence that makes my eyes sting, I don’t hold anything back.
I let him see me. All of me. Because I trust him.
Because it’s him.
“Caden,” I whisper, voice cracking just slightly.
“I know,” he breathes, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’ve got you. I always have you.”
It’s the kind of connection that makes the world fall away. There’s nothing else—just his body, his breath, the way we move together like we were built for this. For each other.
I don’t know how long it lasts. Time becomes meaningless. We lose ourselves in each other, in the sound of our breathing, the slide of skin, the whispered I love yous and missed yous and stay with me.
And when it’s over, when we’re tangled up in the sheets and each other, limbs heavy, hearts pounding, I feel more full than I have in weeks. Not just physically but emotionally. Like something empty inside me finally filled.
Caden runs his fingers through my hair in a gentle and soothing gesture. “You okay?” he asks softly.
I nod against his chest. “Better than okay.”
He kisses the top of my head. “You were amazing.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself,” I tease, even though my throat’s still tight.
We lie together for a long while in silence, his heartbeat thudding steady beneath my ear. Then, quietly, I say, “I hate that we can’t have this all the time.”
His arms tighten around me. “I know.”
“I hate that you have to hide it.”
“I hate it too,” he says. “But I’m not hiding you. Just… protecting what we have.”
I nod. Because I know it’s true. Still, it aches.
“You’re worth it,” I say into the quiet. “Even if it hurts sometimes.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs.
“Shut up,” I say, lifting my head. “Don’t even go there.”
His smile is tired, but real. “I’m trying. For us. For a future where I don’t have to compartmentalize the best part of my life.”
“I’ll wait for that future,” I whisper.
And he kisses me again. This time soft and slow, like maybe that future is already starting to take shape right here in this bed. Where it’s just us: real and raw and unafraid.