Chapter 40 Slim #2
Chills. Up and down my spine and clustering in my stomach, I finally felt the chills, but not from the frosty weather outside. It was from him and my name on his full lips after six days without it.
He was here. He was here and he was perfect and all of my love for him rushed front and center in my heart that tried to physically drag me to him.
Ethan was staring at me, confused and with a twinge of concern on his face.
My desperation and determination clashed together in a poor concoction that ended up exploding out of me in the one question I came here to get an answer to.
“Did you know?”
The confusion on Ethan’s face grew. “Did I know what?”
“The first time you called me Slim. Did you know?” I asked pointedly.
Still, he appeared confounded. My heart was beating so fast in my chest that I was breathing like I’d ran here as I huffed and clarified.
“I watched the movie. I know about Slim. I know what it means.”
Finally, it clicked in Ethan’s eyes. He knew exactly what I was asking. Ethan drug his gaze down to the floor and scratched his chin across a thick scruff that had grown in since I last saw him.
“Do you want to come inside?” His voice was deep and dipped in knowing. I had figured him out, and I’m not sure he ever thought I would.
“Please just answer the question,” I breathed, desperation heavy in my tone. “I need to know if you knew when you took me to the lake.”
“Why?” He almost sounded angry. “It doesn’t change anything for us.”
“It does for me.”
Ethan held his tongue, pushing out a deep and thoroughly overwhelmed sigh.
He stood in quiet consideration, and I got a front row seat to the agonizing show playing across his gaze.
I wasn’t going to let this go, and he could see that.
I’d ask and ask until he gave me the answer I knew was waiting behind those desolate eyes.
“Yes.” Both his voice and his expression were drenched in defeat. “I knew the first time I called you Slim that I was falling in love with you.”
And there it was.
With his answer, an arrow shot straight through my heart, and a slow, steady stream of my love for him trickled out.
It filled my feet, up through my legs and my body began to grow heavy with the weight of my love for Ethan.
It was taking over, and the question I asked next didn’t help stop its rise.
“And when you told me ‘Don’t forget Slim’, what was that?”
Ethan’s head dropped low, his unwillingness to confess radiating out of him even though we both knew he would, if not simply for the fact that it was me asking. Without looking at me, he proved just that.
“That was my way of telling you to not forget how much I love you.”
The arrow inside my heart thrashed around, creating a gaping hole for Ethan’s love to pour through faster and consume all of me up to my neck.
My head was the only thing left breathing the rational air that fueled rational thoughts and rational decisions.
If that part of me went under, then I was going to drown in my love for Ethan.
And to tell the truth, I couldn’t think of a sweeter death.
“So every time you called me Slim…?”
Ethan dragged his stare back up, collapsing my heart in on itself with the devotion firing through his eyes. “I was telling you that I loved you.”
The truth on his lips broke an audible breath out of me that sounded very much like I’d been punched in the stomach. My head was shaking back and forth as I digested the information that made me want to cry thousands of tears, all with his name in them.
“I—We had known each other for maybe a month when we went to the lake, Ethan. A month .”
At this, Ethan smiled a small, sad smile.
“It still shocks me when I think about how fast I fell in love with you. By the time I realized it was happening, it was too late.” He shrugged a bashful shrug. “I was yours.”
A cry broke past my lips even though there were no tears to follow.
Knowing Ethan had been telling me he loved me with each ‘Slim’ that came from his lips over these last few months was too much to know.
The idea of it was overwhelming. The information shook my body in modest trembles that Ethan mistook for me being cold.
“Alice, come inside. It’s freezing out there.”
Ethan held his hand out to me, and my eyes fell to it.
His palm was face up and empty, but held so much more than just an offer to bring me in from the cold.
It held the opportunity to walk away and save what was left of my humanity or the opportunity to give into our love, even if just for one night.
Latching my stare back to Ethan’s, I realized I made that choice the moment I got in my car to come here tonight.
With my resolution final, I left my better self outside the door, walked right up to Ethan, past his outstretched hand, past the consequences, past the barriers and covered his lips with mine.
Ethan froze beneath my kiss, but that didn’t last more than a second.
In a quick motion, his arms swept around my waist, dragging me in tight as he kissed me like I knew he would.
I let out a moan between our moving mouths, my heart bursting like my tastebuds to have him again, to savor him like this.
He held me like he thought he might lose me at any given moment, and I melted into him further to ease whatever worries he had.
I wasn’t going anywhere tonight.
His lips stroked mine with a passion that spoke loudly at how sure Ethan was that he would never get to kiss me again like this. His grip around me might have been bruising, but I wanted it. I wanted him in this completely raw, beautiful state.
Ethan’s kisses pulled the breath right out of my lungs so all I had left was a breathless whisper.
“I love you too.”
With Ethan’s chest pressed so fixedly to mine, I could feel the exact moment that he stopped breathing.
“I know I asked you not to say it, but I just—” I stopped, falling over my words. “I just need you to know that I do.”
His eyes jumped back and forth between mine, then dropped to my lips. The look in them was nothing short of dazed, shaken even. The worry that I shouldn’t have said what I said crept up my spine and settled in my head, mucking up my confidence in this moment.
That was, until the press of his forehead connected to mine.
“Say it again.”
Joy swelled through me and stamped out the worry that had tried to take over, letting my love for Ethan freely leave my lips.
“I love you.”
His hold around me compressed, his eyes closing. “Again.”
I loved this. I loved saying it. I loved his demand to hear me say it over and over again. I’d say it as many times as I could fit into tonight before the morning came and the words had to be locked behind closed doors again.
“I love you. I love you. I’m in love with you. So much. I—”
He cut my next confession of love off with his mouth, sealing over mine and locking in our fate.
His kisses were like fire, scorching and destructive, burning down every last bit of willpower I had left until I was empty of anything but our love.
It was the only thing fueling me. The only thing left inside of me that mattered at all.
Tearing my lips from his no more than an inch, I waited for Ethan’s eyes to find me so I could watch the spectacle of emotions flash in them as I made my intentions known.
“You said that you would do anything for just one day with me but…” I trailed off, excitement bubbling in my stomach. “Would you settle for one night?”
The fire that was always in Ethan’s eyes exploded into an array of fireworks and before anymore could be said, his lips were back on mine.