Chapter 41
Forty-One
T hey’d slept until the late afternoon, the sun disappearing after annoying them all day. Tori considered getting shades for the windows before wondering whether she might make a very different decision altogether.
With Mia in her arms, she ignored the ache in her neck that had woken her and the full bladder that wasn’t helping. Tori had imagined this moment so many times.
In quiet, lonely nights. On rare occasions when she’d drank too much. She’d stupidly let herself want it sometimes, but never believed it would come true.
And now here Mia was.
Curled against her chest like a second skin. Warm and soft and stirring in her arms like Tori’s change in breathing had woken her.
“Sorry,” Tori whispered, hoping Mia would go back to sleep. Hoping that they could stay in the perfect stillness forever. Stay wrapped in each other and buzzing with the freedom of not having a single thing left unsaid.
“Everything in my body hurts,” Mia groaned. “And I’m starving.”
Tori chuckled. Even half-asleep, Mia could make her laugh. She nestled against Mia’s back, taking her Big Spoon duties very seriously.
“What time is it?” Mia grumbled.
Tori kissed the back of her shoulder where she’d left a deep purple mark. Without the fog of lust, she wouldn’t have left so many bruises.
“Why? Do you have somewhere to be on a Saturday afternoon?” Tori curled her arm around Mia’s ribs.
“You mean other than in my girlfriend’s bed dropping L-bombs?” Mia rested her arm over Tori’s and rubbed her feet against hers like every extremity needed to touch.
“Other than that,” Tori played along.
Mia sighed, asking her own question rather than Tori’s. “I can’t stop wondering what life would have been like if we’d gotten together in high school.” She ran her fingertips over the veins in Tori’s hand. “Like imagine never having experienced a breakup, or any heartbreak really, or never being apart?—”
“You don’t know that we wouldn’t have broken up.”
Mia flipped around, cheeks flushed. “What the heck does that mean?”
Tori smoothed Mia’s wild, red hair. “It means that almost nobody stays with their high school sweetheart,” she said with a shrug. “We got to make our mistakes with other people. Whatever path we had to walk, it’s the only way we can be here now.” She grinned. “Be in the place where I can tell you I love you with my whole chest.”
“Very fortune cookie of you,” Mia teased before her eyes lost their shine. “I just regret?—”
“Regret is a painfully useless emotion?—”
“What, are you and Marigold teaming up on me now?” Mia deflected then she sighed. “I know, I know. I’ve lived in the past so long. In scarcity. It’s hard to live in the now. In all the things I have.” She followed the curve of Tori’s collarbone. “That I’m so profoundly grateful for.”
“And what do you think you’re going to do next?”
Tori didn’t know the exact amounts, but Mia had gotten an inheritance from her mother along with a nice chunk from the sale of her house in Pennsylvania. It might have been enough to carry her for a bit, but it certainly wasn’t enough to retire on.
“I guess I should say, what do you want to do next?” Tori corrected herself.
Mia took a deep breath before she replied, “I don’t know, but I want to take some time to think about it. I don’t want to fall into something. I want to walk into it, you know?”
Tori nodded. She played with the ends of Mia’s hair, still slightly damp from sweat and sleep. “Would you ever want to go to med school?” she asked.
Mia let out a startled laugh—more breath than sound. “What? Now?”
“Yeah. Now .” Tori kept her tone light, but her fingers stilled. “You’ve clearly got the bedside manner.” She smirked before getting serious. “And Mia, I’m sorry, but you barely gave it a real shot the first time. And you’d wanted it so bad. Don’t you remember?—”
Mia laughed louder. “Tori?—”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re serious about me starting med school in my mid-thirties?” She shook her head. “That’s unhinged.”
Tori shrugged. “Do you know how many people start med school later in life? I bet it happens every single day.”
Mia rolled onto her back, squinting up at the ceiling like it might have answers. “Yeah, but they’re not me.”
Tori remained at her side to face her, propping her head on one hand. “Exactly. They’re not you . You’d be incredible. You’re so smart and tenacious,” she said. “And think about how different your application essays would be from most other applicants’. I think maturity and experience could be a real asset.”
No one was as sharp, and capable, and relentless as Mia. Tori knew Mia could do anything if someone just gave her the chance to breathe.
Mia glanced at her, eyes soft and uncertain. “You really think I could do that?”
Tori didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
Mia looked away, her voice brittle around the edges. “The loans I’d have to take out would be massive. And trying to work while going to school— if I even did get in. Which is the biggest if.” She shook her head, more to herself than to Tori. “It’s not realistic.”
Tori hesitated for a second, but there was no point in holding back. Not anymore. “You could move in with me.”
Mia blinked at her.
“I make more than enough for both of us,” Tori said carefully. “You could focus on school. Or on figuring things out. No pressure. Just support.”
Mia pushed herself up a little, elbow on the mattress, hair tumbling down her chest. “Tori.”
“I know it’s a lot. But I’m saying it because I mean it.” Tori tried to keep her voice even, tried not to let the hope in her chest get ahead of her. “You don’t have to say yes, obviously. I just want to put it out there.” She offered a little smile. “Let’s be realistic here. We’re going to move in together way too soon anyway.”
Mia looked down at the sheet between them, fingers idly twisting in the fabric. “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I don’t want to sell my mom’s house,” Mia said, eyes full of the regret Tori hoped she’d learn to shed.
Tori nodded and waited for Mia to offer the next logical alternative. Hoped that she would.
Then Mia looked at her, unsure in a way that shouldn’t be possible after everything they’d been through. “Would you consider moving in with me?”
Tori turned toward her fully, heart lurching. “You’d want that?”
“I do want that.” Mia reached for her hand under the sheet, lacing their fingers together. “It’s just a house without you in it.”
Tori grinned, an enthusiastic yes printed on her lips.
“One question.” Mia focused her gaze. “How soon is this too soon you speak of?” She climbed on top of Tori, golden sunset at her back. “Because the way I see it, we’ve been dating, like, almost twenty years.”
Tori laughed, chest light and body weightless. She rested her hands on Mia’s hips. “Twenty years, huh?”
Mia leaned forward and kissed her even though they were both still smiling. “By my count you’re slow as hell.”
“If we move in together does that mean I get all my old stuff back?” Tori ran her hands up Mia’s back, holding her tight before flipping her onto her back and climbing on top of her.
“Technically, I guess.” Mia’s hazel eyes were electric. “But the varsity jacket is mine.”
Tori stared down at her. Mia had once been her entire world, then the most painful heartbreak of her life, then a memory, and now… Her future. She kissed her to seal the agreement, sure she’d never let her go again.
It was impossible to know what the rest of her life would look like. But she sure as hell knew where it was starting.