Chapter 55
CHARLIE
“You are my dreams.” Myles catches hold of my face, his grip over my jaw almost painful as he clings to me. His eyes are dark and wild as they bore into mine, and ohmigod—
The hope and happiness taking over my system are so intense, they hurt. Every breath is as tight and raw in my throat as when I’d hung up the phone that day, a decade ago, when Myles’s dad told me not to call anymore...that Myles would have called if he’d wanted to talk to me.
Only right now, instead of my heart and my world shattering, the last of the cracks that still ran through it, ready to burst back apart when the end of summer came and I was going to lose him all over again, are closing up. Melding back together as seamlessly as if they’d never been.
“When I was younger,” there’s a quaver to his voice, but the smile pulling at his lips makes it totally clear that it doesn’t matter that I haven’t told him in words yet what the thing he’s saying is doing to me. He already knows.
“When I was younger, I felt like I had to go somewhere and do some huge, crazy thing to make my dad happy, since I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it the way he had in mind.
I hated the idea of being stuck here because I hated that I couldn’t be his second shot at his dreams, but it wasn’t until I met you that I actually ever wanted anything for myself.
I didn’t even know what I wanted to do then, Charlie.
I just had this idea in my head of the two of us.
It didn’t ever matter where we’d go or what we’d do.
I just wanted us to do whatever it was together. ”
“You never told me—” I try to keep any kind of accusation out of my voice.
I’m not mad. Not even hurt. I understand, I really do.
Now that I know everything he’s told me about how confused he was by his feelings for me when we were younger, I totally get it.
And it’s not like I didn’t keep my feelings for him secret too. It’s just… Ohmigod, if I’d known…
“I know.” He strokes his fingers over my cheeks, softly now.
A rueful smile twists his lips. “It just felt like something I shouldn’t say out loud.
Probably because you would have seen straight through it to everything I couldn’t see back then.
I still can’t really wrap my head around how I didn’t know I was in love with you, but I’m trying.
I’m trying not to beat myself up over it, but it’s so fucking obvious now that I know. ”
I give the back of his neck a soft squeeze.
He’s told me that he’s reached out to a therapist about getting some help processing the hurt from his childhood and the way he can’t always separate his feelings about what happened between us from his feelings about being demi, and I’m so glad.
I hate it that he’s so hard on himself, but most of all, I can’t stand the idea of him not totally embracing any part of who he is, even if it’s only circumstantially.
“I never hated it here until you left and I fucked everything up. All my feelings about the shit with my dad got mixed up with how every single thing I saw here reminded me of you, and I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get as far the hell away from this place as I could.
And so I did. As soon as I could. But as soon as I got back here, I realized how much I’d missed it.
I just still couldn’t stand being here because every last thing I saw reminded me of you, and it hurt so much, all I could think about was getting away from here again, even though it felt like leaving again would hurt in a whole nother way.
“But now,” his fingers run up into my hair as he pulls me forward for a soft, slow kiss. “Charlie, it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
My heart is breaking in the happiest, best, most beautiful way ever, and ohmigod, how is this real?
“Stay here with me,” he whispers. “Or I’ll go back to Seattle with you. Or I can stay here and you—”
“I am never letting you finish that sentence.” I try to sniffle back my tears, but there’s no hope now, and so I give up, letting them run down my cheeks. “You are mine, Myles Marlow, and I am yours.” My voice breaks, and his eyes well up in answer. “Yes I’ll stay here with you.”
My hands are shaking and my face is a mess of tears as I lean in and kiss him, wet and graceless and tearful and so totally perfect because under my lips, I can feel that his smile is every bit as ridiculously huge as mine.
There’s still a shaky catch to my breath as he tips me back onto the sofa, lowering himself down over my body.
Our lips barely even separate as we strip each other out of our clothes, and when Myles tries to get up to run up to his bathroom for lube, I wind my legs around his waist, dragging him back down on top of me until he gives up, kissing me like he might die without the deep, sweet tangle of our tongues and bodies.
I have to convince him that it’s alright not to have lube and that he won’t hurt me, but when he finally sinks into me, slick with nothing but spit, nothing between us, his hot skin bare against my inner walls as he rocks into me in long, deep thrusts, there’s not a thing about this moment that I’d change.
His hand that’s not working over my shaft is buried in my hair, and our mouths are still pressed together, drinking in each other’s moans when I feel his body tense beneath my fingers that are digging into the muscular swell of his ass.
The first hot pulse of his release has me arching up against him, clenching around his cock as I erupt between us, streaking his chest with cum as he pants out the most gorgeous word I’ve ever heard.
“Mine.”
And that’s exactly what I am. So totally and completely. Forever his.
“Come in.”
My pulse speeds and there’s a clammy dampness to my hands as I step through the door into Principal Garland’s office.
Whatever the outcome of this conversation, it doesn’t change anything about what will happen with Myles and me, but now that I know that Myles wants to stay here, it’s like those roots I’ve been trying so hard to keep from spreading out and taking hold in this place have gone crazy overnight.
I want us to be able to stay here in Riverside. So badly.
Mr. Garland’s smile is slightly quizzical as I settle into the chair opposite him. Or maybe that’s just the nervousness building in me.
In the email he’d sent in response to my request for a meeting this morning, he’d told me he only has a couple of minutes, so I get straight to the point, oh so grateful for the little push to just come out and say what I need to say. Smalltalk is so totally beyond me at this moment.
And so, I just…say it.
“I was wondering if I might still be able to apply for the permanent position you told me about. I know I said I didn’t want it, but…”
“But you’ve changed your mind.” An approving smile spreads over Mr. Garland’s lined face.
“I’d hoped you might.” His smile widens.
“So much, that I’d held off on posting the position outside the existing staff.
If you’re serious about it, you’ll be the only applicant.
It’ll have to be approved by the superintendent of course, but he’s just as aware as the rest of us how well you fit in here in Riverside. ”
I’m just opening my mouth to thank him when he cuts me off.
“Does this mean we should expect Mr. Marlow to change his mind about returning next year as well?”
“Uh, I think, um—”
He reaches forward across his desk, slapping me on the shoulder with a laugh. It has an obnoxiously good ole’ boys vibe, but his grin is friendly and encouraging. “Well, anyway, I hope that’s what it means. He’s as good for this school as you are.”
“How do you know?” Dammit, this was a moment to filter. Not to just blurt out the question that’s as unprofessional as him just coming out with his assumptions. Assumptions probably based on—
“Ms. Dawson’s had quite a lot to say on the subject. You two have given her all the gossip she needs to sail through quite happily to the end of the year.”
Shameless. The man, and his amused, self-satisfied grin, are totally shameless. And of course Janice would be behind the rumors he’s clearly taken for fact. Never mind that the gist, whatever the details are, is true…
Before I have to try to figure out what on earth to say, Mr. Garland glances up at the clock.
“I have to go. Meeting with the superintendent. I’ll tell him what you were here about.” He pushes his chair back from his desk, ushering me out of his office and into the hallway where warm, spring morning air is drifting in through the propped open doors.
“Email me an official letter of interest.” Another smile.
Sincere and approving again. “Get it to me by tomorrow morning, and I imagine we should be able to have your contract approved at this week’s school board meeting.
And have Mr. Marlow send me a message as well, documenting that he no longer wishes to resign. ”
Never mind the fact that I never confirmed his assumptions about Myles.
“Have a good day, Mr. Lancaster.” One last hearty back slap, and he’s off, striding down the hall, leaving me with an elated buzz that has me practically floating as I head off to my classroom to text Myles and tell him everything that’s just happened.
And ohmigod—
Myles loves me.
The two of us are staying here, together, in Riverside.
We’re going to build a life together, right in the place where everything began for us.
Ohmigod, how can this possibly be real?