Chapter 27 #2
This time it’s me who drops Percy’s hand first, though only so I can rest my palm lightly on his lower back.
I don’t think I imagine him leaning into the touch.
It’s too late to catch an actual sunset, but even at night, the view is breathtaking.
My free hand skims absently over the stone wall, and I notice something carved there in tiny block letters.
I have to squint to see it, but with the moon and stars, there’s just enough light.
The sun sets on one more day where I will never be enough.
I run my fingers over the words and can practically feel the author’s loneliness seeping through the stone into my bones. They strike a resonant chord within me, as if the writer had peered into my soul and given voice to my own deepest insecurities.
“What is it?” Percy asks, noticing my shift in mood.
I read the words aloud to him. “Who do you think wrote it?”
“I don’t know. But whoever it is, I hope they found their peace.”
Peace. That’s what I feel washing over me the longer we stand there together, watching the stars sparkle in their infinite glory. Maybe today will be wiped away like the dozen or so Saturdays before it. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, nothing we do tonight matters.
But this moment—my memory of being here with this boy beside me—that will persist. And that memory is everything.
I’m not sure how long passes before Percy tenses and clutches my arm. “Chris. Look!”
I turn to follow his gesture, and then I see it. A haze of emerald light dances across the horizon, shimmering like an ethereal veil drawn over our mundane reality.
“The Northern Lights,” I breathe. “I totally forgot! I overheard some people talking about them that first Saturday. I guess in all our iterations, we’ve never been outside at the right time to catch them.”
I can’t tear my gaze away from the mesmerizing sight, watching the lights dance as they form scintillating patterns in the night sky. Everything else fades from my awareness except for Percy pressed into my side. The Northern Lights don’t last long—barely a handful of minutes—before fading away.
Neither of us speaks for a long moment. Then, Percy gives a breathless chuckle. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen them. I’d heard they’re visible here sometimes, especially this time of year, but it’s less common in the summer when I used to visit.”
“That was my first time, too.” Now I understand why those tourists had seemed so excited.
Percy turns, furrowing his brow as he gestures back the way we’d come. “You know, for a moment there, I thought I saw someone else walking toward us along the road.”
I squint into the darkness but can’t make anyone else out. “Maybe we’re not the only ones out for a nighttime stroll.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He studies the empty road. “I wonder if it was another couple heading here until they saw us.”
Couple. My brain almost short-circuits at his application of the word to us, but I don’t call him on it. I’m not even sure he noticed the slip. Instead, my thoughts veer back to that depressing line I’d found on the wall. Maybe Percy’s mysterious stranger had been whoever had carved it.
The sun sets on one more day where I will never be enough.
Suddenly, I yearn more than anything to be enough. Not for my parents or my former team or anyone else who ever judged me and made me feel small. Enough for myself. And enough for the boy standing beside me.
My thoughts are jumbled, my heart beating too fast. I turn to find Percy watching me, his expression unreadable in the gloom. And, in that moment, bad idea or not, I know exactly what I want.
I reach a trembling hand up, like Percy had during our road trip the previous day, and rest it lightly against his cheek. His body tenses beneath my touch as he hisses in a breath. But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t reach for me…but neither does he pull away.
Good enough.
Hoping I’m not making the worst mistake of my life, I surge forward and crush my lips to his. My body comes alive at the firm press of his lips beneath mine, at the taste of him on my tongue. My hands move to cup him behind the neck, drawing him in closer, and…
And he’s not kissing me back.
The realization strikes me like a blow to the head. He has yet to react, standing there utterly frozen like a statue. Panic and shame spike through me. Oh God, am I that far off base? I thought he’d wanted this as much as I did, but had I been projecting this whole time?
I break the kiss and start to pull back, and that’s when Percy finally, blessedly, moves.
Not to shove me away or step back but to surge forward.
I close my eyes, losing myself in the soft caress of his mouth.
It’s everything I remember yet somehow more at the same time.
Less inhibited, maybe? Or perhaps it only feels that way now that I’ve admitted to myself how badly I want this.
When the two of us part, we’re both panting. We stare at each other, and his smoldering look alone is enough to make my cock strain against my jeans. From the bulge in his pants, I assume he faces the same dilemma.
I lick my slightly chafed lips. “So. That just happened.”
Percy laughs, still a bit breathless. “Yeah. Yeah, it did.”
Doubt rears its ugly head again, and I shift to put some distance between us. “I’m, um, sorry if that crossed a line. We agreed to go on a date, not reach first base.”
The darkness isn’t enough to hide his furious blush. “It’s all right.”
“Are you sure? I mean, I know everything’s weird right now, and things are all kinds of mixed up between us. I don’t want to take advantage or—”
To my utter shock, Percy steps forward and pointedly rubs his erection against my leg. “Trust me, I’m fine. You’re not the only one who was, um…into that.”
My entire body feels ready to combust as I lean in to steal another kiss that turns into a dozen before we come up for air. This time, neither of us pulls away, and we stay there like that, foreheads pressed together.
Percy huffs a strained laugh. “God, what are we doing? Is this a terrible idea?”
Probably. I let my hands wander, mapping his arms, his sides, his back—all the contours of his flesh that used to be familiar to me and that I’m now desperate to explore anew. After a moment’s hesitation, his fingers tentatively begin doing the same to me.
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not,” I admit. “But I do know I’ve wanted this for a while now. And I…I’ve missed you.”
Percy hugs me tight against him. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “Really, truly sorry for how things ended between us. I…I know it was my fault for pulling away from you. It was just so much to deal with, and I was so scared…”
I consider letting him off the hook. I could tell him it’s okay, no hard feelings. Say I forgive him. Instead, there on that rocky outcropping beneath the stars, I tell him the truth.
“It hurt,” I say, my voice cracking with the admission.
“For a long time. It…it made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.
I could handle everyone else pulling away—my family, my team, my other friends.
But you…you were the one person I needed in my corner.
And when you didn’t want me either, I felt worthless. ”
Now Percy’s not so much holding me against him as he is clutching at me like a lifeline, fingers digging into my arms. He shudders, his voice almost a sob.
“You were the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I’ve always been so worried about what other people think.
So preoccupied with making my dad—and my mom—proud of me.
But letting you go…I think it’s the thing I’ve regretted most.”
The words soothe something in me, an ache I’ve carried for the last two years like an open wound. I mattered to him. Whatever else happens, whatever else comes between us or however fleeting our connection tonight proves, I mattered to him. And he sure as hell mattered to me, too.
For now, for this moment, that’s enough.
I don’t remember the walk back to the Royal Lilac.
Honestly, it’s a miracle neither of us falls flat on our faces or accidentally wanders off the road.
What I do remember are our intertwined fingers dangling between us.
The way his body keeps grazing against mine, like even a couple inches is too great a separation to bear.
The intermittent brush of his lips as he leans over to steal kisses whenever the fancy strikes him.
Ms. Lindman is sitting downstairs reading as usual when we walk in, and I’m sure we say something to her as we pass, call out some sort of greeting, but I can’t remember what.
Then we’re up the stairs and through the door into my room, tumbling into my bed with our limbs a tangled mess.
Every part of me yearns to touch every part of him, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m making up for lost time—trying to erase the stain of the last two years spent apart.
Percy seems equally eager, grinding his hips against me as he shucks off my shirt and traces the ridges of my abs.
He stares down at me, his eyes dark with hunger.
We don’t speak, perhaps both of us too afraid that doing so might shatter the spell.
Or maybe it’s just that we have so many better uses for our mouths.
Tossing aside his shirt, I lean up to press little kisses along his shoulder and down his chest before lunging forward to suckle his neck.
He moans, arching his back, and the instant I pull away, his mouth crashes over mine as if desperate to consume me.
His fingers tweak my nipples, making me buck beneath him, then slide lower and lower down my sides until they’re thumbing at the waist of my jeans.
He pauses there, a silent question on his face, and this is it—my last chance to reconsider and call this whole thing off before it’s too late.
Except, lying there looking up at his slim, bare chest, his blue eyes burning with desire and his mop of hair a tangled mess framing his kind face, I know it’s already too late.
Maybe this is what the time loop has been building toward all along, or maybe this is all on us.
Either way, there’s no turning back for me now.
Gently, I clasp his forearms and slide his hands lower still. His hesitation vanishes, leaving only passion and something softer in its wake, and as we shed the rest of our clothes and join our lips and bodies together, it’s as if we’re two pieces of the same broken heart, reuniting as one.
Somewhere in our clash of bodies and tongues, in the longing and the hurt and the forgiveness and the love, I have enough presence of mind to direct a giant thank you to the universe for giving us this chance—for giving us all these chances to find our way back to each other against all odds.
When our bodies are finally sated, he stays without me needing to ask, snuggling against my side. We fall asleep in each other’s arms, murmuring all the affectionate words we weren’t brave enough to say while awake, and life is perfect.
At least, until I wake up and discover Percy gone, another endless Saturday about to begin.