Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
ACTUALLY NOT SO
BAD AUGUST
It’s late afternoon the following day when I finally open my eyes.
August’s room. August’s bed.
It’s incredibly peaceful in here, nothing but the rhythmic patter of rain on the window, accompanied by the occasional reassuring swish of a car somewhere.
I’m the perfect temperature, knowing it’s crisp just beyond the window, but in here, it’s magnificent.
August’s side is flush with mine, his skin radiating that now-familiar throb of pleasure. I roll over, slipping an arm around his waist. It’s only when his hand drifts up to cover my wrist that I notice he’s awake. Wide awake, staring at the ceiling.
My stomach sinks.
The kiss I place on his shoulder brings a little smile to his face, a softening of the hard eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
That pretend smile I know too well. “Nothing.”
“Are you worried about whether we put it back right?”
“Yeah. A bit.”
“I think…” I kiss his shoulder again. “It all seemed right. I can’t imagine all those pathways lining up like they did if it wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s… It’s not just that.”
Here it comes. The reality of us. And the irony isn’t lost on me, that we’ve been trying so hard to get reality back in place, all the while living in a fantasy.
How long has he been awake, thinking this over?
I give him time to work up to whatever he wants to say, to get his thoughts straight. And I give him time because I don’t want to hear it. I want to go back to sleep, curled up with him, and never hear whatever it is.
But I gave him my heart, and now it’s his to break. If that’s what he needs to do, I’ll understand. After all, what kind of shitty boyfriend does the damage I did? The damage he almost died fixing.
“I love you.” His voice breaks when he says it, drawing my eyes just in time to see a tear slide down to the pillow.
“Why are you crying?” When I touch his face, he rolls over towards me, shrinking into me. I want to wring it all out of him, whatever sadness is cutting him off from me. But all I can do is put my arms around him and hold him close.
His head’s sunk against my chest. I stroke his hair until he’s calmer. Until he says, “If you have to go…” and drifts off there.
I thrust the bedcovers back, reaching for his chin to make him look at me. “Are you serious right now?”
A bashful, typically August blush colours his cheeks, his eyes skittering away from me. “You’ll want to know, won’t you? That it’s all back?”
“I don’t care.”
He smiles a sad smile. “That’s very sweet of you to say, but I know you do.” Turning onto his front, his side pressed against me, “I know how sad you always were. And how hard you fought. And I can’t imagine you’d give up on all of it, that peace of mind…”
“You’re my peace of mind.” His head dips against my shoulder. “I told you that, and I meant it.”
“But what if something happens? You and me… How can we work this out? They said, the Augusts, it’s one thing being in the same world, but being together…” I can barely understand him when he buries his face in the pillow, but I do make out, “I don’t think I can keep my hands off you.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” His head’s back against my chest, hiding his face. Christ, I love him. “August, look at me.”
“No. I think I’ll kiss you.”
“Then kiss me.”
“And what? Destroy this world we just fixed?”
“Kiss me.”
It takes a moment, and needs the guidance of my fingertips, but he raises his head, eyes closed, and drops a gentle kiss on my lips.
The spark is ever-present, gorgeous.
Until he pulls back.
“Do it again.”
“August…”
Pressing forward, kissing him, I keep him a little longer this time. Pleasing tingles tickle across our skin. I know he can feel it too. The kiss deepens, in his control now, his fingers scrunching into my arm.
“Oh my god, do you see?” He shoves me off and rolls over onto his back. “You’re impossible.”
I pursue him, catching him around the waist, kissing his neck. “That’s not what you said yesterday.”
He tilts his head to allow me access. “Yesterday we were five hundred years in the future.”
“And we weren’t impossible.” I kiss his jawline. “And we weren’t destructive.” I kiss the side of his mouth. “And we were going to do this.”
Turning his face to me, it finally comes out. “Do you want to stay here with me?”
“More than anything else in all of existence.”
I can’t stop kissing him, even as he pours out all his worries in a harried stream of consciousness.
“You can have it all back now. Your time and your old life, and your amazing job—you could probably get a Nobel Prize for what you did. And then there’s money.
Because you must have lots more of that than I do, with your work.
And it’s hard here. I’ve only got this place, and no real job, and-and you can’t have hot Coke at the cafe.
At any cafe. And your movies and things that you grew up with and… and…”
I press a finger to his beautiful lips. “I just want you.” I kiss them. “And I’m going to stay here and tell you that until you believe me. And then I’m going to stay here and tell you that for the rest of our lives.”
His body yields to my caresses, and I pull him to me, face to face.
“You know what you’re like?” He raises an eyebrow in question.
“You are like… the bridge of a song—the bit you can’t bear to turn off.
The part where you pull up in your car at your destination, but you can’t get out.
Instead, you sit there in the car park and blast the music as loud as you can because it’s impossible to stop.
You’re that magic that makes life special.
I couldn’t walk away from you. Not ever.
What we have is beyond love, beyond time, beyond worlds.
This is the most powerful force in the universe, and I feel it in my heart as much as I know it in my head. You’re my multiverse, August.”
His smile is breathtaking, and this time he kisses me without reluctance, letting his precious hand fall gently on my chest. “That’s almost Bon Jovi level poetic.”
“Almost? I’ll have to try harder.” And now, it’s more than kisses. I can’t resist him. Won’t resist him. Now it’s time to make it official in this world, along with all the others.
I’m never going back. My life has meaning. Loving August. Caring for August. Being loved by the other half of me.
Me.
Maybe we are impossible.
But that doesn’t make us any less right.