Bonus Chapter #2
He pulls back suddenly. His eyes light up, his chest rising fast, as he opens the truck bed, and I can see the setup.
He has blankets, pillows, a bottle of wine, and two glasses.
“Get in,” he says softly. I should say no; I should walk away.
But instead, I climb up, and he follows, pulling the door shut behind us.
“Didn’t we do this when we were sixteen?” That’s when the flashbacks come.
We were so in love back then, we still are.
He had just gotten his license, and his dad bought him a truck.
He picked me up with the excuse that he wanted to take me for a ride and show it to me.
But secretly, he had planned a date night.
He parked in a very dark spot of town, near here, to see the stars.
They looked exactly the way they look today.
“We did”, he smiled now.
He had a setup just like this one, except we had beer that night. We weren’t allowed to drink yet, so he stole it from his dad. We kept talking all night, and we ended up having sex on the truck bed. That was our first time; after that, we became inseparable. “So, you planned this?”
“I was feeling hopeful.”
His hands frame my face as he kisses me again, slower now.
His other hand slides up my thigh, gliding under the hem of my dress, fingers tracing inside until I shiver against his mouth.
I tug him closer, pulling him between my legs, dress riding up over my thighs, and he groans.
A deep, broken sound that goes straight through me.
“Liv…” His voice is low, desperate. “I’ve missed you. You have no idea.”
“I do,” I whisper, nipping at his lower lip.
“I really do.” His hands slide down my sides, fingers digging into my hips as he pulls me closer until my back hits the pillow.
My legs part for him without question, instinct, or muscle memory; I don’t even know at this point.
I gasp into his mouth, but he doesn’t break the kiss.
The word breaks. His forehead drops to my neck, his breath is hot, and his lips brush the place just under my ear.
“I’ve been dreaming about this,” he admits, voice low and wrecked.
“About you, about the sounds you make, about how you say my name when you c—” I cut him off with a kiss, because if he says one more thing like that, I’m going to climb onto his lap and ruin every good decision I’ve made in five years.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, thumb brushing my lower lip. “You’re shaking.” I nod, “It’s just the cold.” His hand slides higher, fingers grabbing my panties. He is looking at me like he’s asking for permission, and my hips jump toward him before I can stop myself.
He kisses me again, hotter this time, teeth grazing my lower lip, tongue sliding against mine in a way that makes my entire body arch into him.
His hand tightens again, dragging me forward, pulling me into his lap with a force that knocks a breathless sound out of me.
I straddle him, dress riding up, heart racing like it’s about to combust. He drags his mouth down my neck, biting gently, my fingers slide under his shirt, palms skimming hot skin, and he shivers —actually shivers.
His voice cracks. “God, you’re going to kill me. ”
“Then die for me,” I whisper, and kiss him again, and then his fingers dig into my hips hard enough to leave marks as he slides into me.
I gasp, but I can’t feel the air coming back into my body.
I tug his hair, hard, and he groans into my throat like I’m the only thing keeping him alive. And then he slides into me.
The truck shifts slightly. People might see us, but I don’t care.
He doesn’t either. “Liv…” he actually chokes on it.
There was a sound —somewhere between a groan and a curse— as his grip on me turned possessive, desperate.
He pulls me against him so sharply I gasp.
His forehead presses to mine, breaths crashing together, bodies locked tight.
I breathe, rolling my hips again. Faster this time.
“I’ve wanted you like this,” he whispers, voice breaking with it.
“A thousand damn nights. And now you’re…
fuck—” I kiss him to shut him up, to taste the years we pretended this wouldn’t happen again.
His hands slam to my hips, dragging me harder against him, our breaths breaking, bodies moving in a rhythm that shouldn’t feel this familiar after so long.
The truck rocks again, it’s not subtle anymore, and it’s more than enough to make heat race through me.
His voice drops to a whisper, the kind that lands right in the center of my chest and doesn’t ask permission to stay. “I could have burned my whole life down, started over, and I’d still never stop loving you.”
The words hit me. This time, they don’t feel reckless.
They don’t feel borrowed or temporary. They feel earned, scraped together from all the versions of him I loved, lost, mourned, and somehow still carried with me like a bruise that never faded.
“Ethan, I’m going to—" and before I can finish that sentence, I can feel him grabbing me in the way that tells me he is about to finish, and I melt in his arms.
He pulls me into a kiss, not the hungry, frantic kind we’ve drowned in before, but something sweeter.
Something that feels like a promise. It’s slow, devastating, and full of every moment we didn’t get right the last time.
Every almost. Every ‘I’m sorry’. Every ‘I miss you’ that neither of us sent but both of us felt anyway.
We broke apart, cleaned ourselves up, and just stared at each other. The noise, the years, the hurt… all of it dissolves into a single, breathless moment where it’s just him and me.
“This feels exactly like that night.” I can’t stop thinking about all the good we had together.
And for the first time, it’s like I can allow myself to let the bad in the past. We are just two people figuring life out after messy relationships, but we were something back then.
We saw an opportunity to be more, and we took it.
“What’s on your mind, Liv?” I don’t even think about it, I start talking.
“That we tried this the wrong way six years ago. We weren’t in the right space, and it wasn’t our time.” He looks at me, confused but in a good way, if that makes sense. “Are you saying that this might be our time now?” Maybe we aren’t falling back into old patterns.
“I’m saying that we have what it takes to make it work, but we need to be in it.
” Maybe we’re stepping into something new.
Something we earned. Something real. “Liv, I’m in it.
You are my everything, and I’m not losing you again, ever.
” Something feels like us after all this time, and I’m choosing to pursue it. I kiss him, but he breaks the kiss.
“Wait,” he says, looking for something, but it’s so dark I can barely see what the hell he's doing until I see a box.
“Olivia, love of my life, will you be mine again, forever this time?” I can’t help it, I start crying and laughing at the same time. He’s not asking me to be his something; he is asking me to be his everything.
And when he opens it, I see it.
Larna’s ring.
And for the first time in twenty-five years, hope doesn’t feel like a mistake.