Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
COVE
I don’t know what this means.
The words sit in my drafts for twenty-three minutes. My thumbs keep hovering, backspacing, retyping. I type “I miss you” once. Delete it.
I type “Do you hate me?” Delete that, too.
There’s no script for this. No guide for how to be in love with someone you’re not supposed to be in love with.
But I’m tired of being haunted by him. By us.
So I stop trying to be eloquent and just hit send.
Me: Come over. I don’t know what this means. But I need to see you.
I stare at the message until it delivers. Until the read receipt pops up.
He replies instantly.
Everest: On my way.
And just like that, I start to tremble. Not because I’m scared of him. Not even because I’m scared of us.
But because I’ve spent days trying to convince myself that I’m over it.
What happened was a mistake, a fever dream, a twisted cosmic joke.
I’ve cried. I’ve screamed. I’ve tried to scrub him off my skin and out of my thoughts.
But now he’s on his way here, and I realize something awful and beautiful at once:
I miss him more than I thought humanly possible.
And worse—I still want him.
My body remembers him like muscle memory. The shape of his mouth. The weight of his hand on my hip. The sound of his laugh, low and sleepy in the morning. The press of his body against mine like we were made to fit.
I don’t pace while I wait for him.
I fold towels, rearrange a drawer, and breathe through the tightness in my chest that won’t go away. I change shirts twice, finally settling on the one I wore the first time he came over.
When the knock comes, my lungs forget how to work. I open the door slowly. And there he is.
Everest.
He looks the same but worse. His hair’s messy. There’s a tiredness under his eyes I’ve never seen before.
“Hi,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
He swallows hard. “Hi.”
We don’t hug. We don’t even smile.
I step back to let him in. The air is thick with the words we’re not saying. He walks into my place like it’s foreign and he’s not sure he’s allowed to be here anymore.
He sits on the far end of the couch while I sit on the opposite side. A whole ocean of space between us. And still, I can feel him. Like gravity pulling at my spine.
He exhales slowly. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Me either.”
“I wanted to call. A thousand times.”
“I wanted to answer.” I fold my hands tightly in my lap. “But I didn’t know what I’d say if I did.”
He nods. His jaw clenches. “You don’t have to say anything. I just… I needed to see you. Even if this is the last time. Even if it hurts.”
Silence spreads and I swear I can hear our hearts pounding like a live action Edgar Allen Poe retelling.
“I’ve been trying not to miss you. And it’s not working,” I admit.
His brows pull together. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do.” My voice is sharp. “I have to, Everest. Because none of this is supposed to be happening.”
“Have you been filming?” he asks, trying to change the subject.
“Briefly. It didn’t last. I ended it early. I couldn’t do it.”
His voice is so quiet. “Because of me?”
I nod. “The second I turned on the camera, I didn’t feel sexy. I didn’t feel in control. I felt… watched. But not in the way you watch me. You see me. They just want pieces.”
He lets that settle, but the ache in his eyes is too loud to ignore.
“Lorna called me ‘cause I’ve been MIA,” I continue. “I told her everything. She just… listened while I cried. And then she told me—without sugarcoating it—that what we had was real. That love doesn’t come with warning labels. That… that maybe the world messed up, but I didn’t.”
He stiffens, but I keep going, words spilling out like blood from a paper cut.
“You made me brave, Everest. You made me soft. You made me want to be something I’ve never wanted before. And now all I can think is… what the hell do I do with that?”
His voice is hoarse. “Let me help you carry it.”
I raise a brow at him as my voice raises. “How?”
“We didn’t grow up together,” he says, scooting closer. “We didn’t know. This wasn’t some fucked-up plan. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t a choice we made. It just… happened.”
“But now we do know.” My throat tightens. “And we can’t unknow it.”
We stare at each other, that awful truth hanging between us.
He takes a deep breath and blows it out loudly before he says. “Then maybe we don’t tell anyone else.”
I blink. “What?”
“We already lost the fairytale,” he says. “Maybe we don’t lose the rest.”
I lean back. “You mean be together like we were but… keep it a secret?”
He nods, his voice lower now. “No one has to know our business. Not our friends or our parents. No one. Just us.”
My knees are weak, heart thudding. “And what does that make us then? If we’re hiding. Lying. Pretending.”
“Whatever you want us to be. But I still want to be yours.”
My heart fractures. I should say no. Should walk away. Should slam the door and bury it all in concrete.
But instead, I lean over and kiss him. It’s slow at first. Shaky. We’re both holding back, like the wrongness might break us open and drain everything within.
But then need takes over. All the days apart, the confusion, the grief, and anger and desperation crashes between our lips. His hands are on my waist. Mine in his hair. We move in sync, like our bodies were never separated. Like they’ve only been waiting to find each other again.
I slide into his lap, straddling him. The feel of him under me is too much and not enough. His mouth moves to my throat, my jaw, my collarbone. Every part of me is a live wire.
He breaks the kiss long enough to whisper, “Are you sure?”
I nod. “Tell me you still want me.”
He doesn’t even hesitate.
“Always.”
I slide his zip-up down his arms, watching the way it pulls over his shoulders. I kiss his chest as it’s exposed, my mouth lingering over the small dip between his collarbones. My hands roam, slow and exploratory, memorizing the feel of his skin.
His breath catches when I drag my fingertips down his stomach. I feel the way his muscles twitch under my touch.
“You’re shaking,” I whisper, pressing my lips against the line of his jaw.
“I know,” he whispers back. “I’m scared this isn’t real.”
My heart clenches.
I kiss his throat. The corner of his mouth. The hollow of his neck. I whisper the only truth I can say right now—one that scares me and comforts me in equal measure.
“You’re mine,” I murmur against his skin.
His hands clutch my hips like I’m the last thing keeping him grounded. “Say it again,” he rasps.
I look him in the eye and say it without blinking. “You’re mine.”
When I finally sink onto him, he lets out a choked, guttural breath—like he’s been holding it back for days.
He feels impossibly deep. My body stretches, clenches, melts around him. His hands grip my hips like if he lets go, he’ll unravel completely. His eyes never leave mine, pupils blown wide, chest heaving.
We don’t move at first. Just stay like that—joined.
My fingers find the planes of his chest, the rapid thump of his heart beneath my palm. His skin is warm and taut and so familiar, it aches. I roll my hips the tiniest bit, and his whole body shudders beneath me.
“Fuck, Cove,” he groans, his voice raw. “You feel like… everything.”
I start to move. Slow at first. Letting him fill me, stretch me, rock into every sensitive spot with each measured glide of my hips. The friction is deep, intense, and maddeningly slow—like we’re trying to make this last forever.
His forehead presses to mine, slick with sweat. Our breaths mix, noses brush, and neither of us close our eyes. We watch each other. Every twitch. Every gasp. Every damn heartbeat.
My hands slide up his chest, over his shoulders, fingers sinking into the thick strands of his hair. I ride him with slow, deliberate rolls—each one dragging a new sound from the back of his throat. His hips lift to meet mine in a messy rhythm we make together.
The tension coils tighter and tighter inside me, sparking at the base of my spine and spreading like wildfire through my limbs. I can feel it building in him too—in the way he grips me harder, the way his jaw clenches, the way he whispers, “Don’t stop. Don’t you dare stop.”
“I won’t,” I whisper.
My orgasm crashes into me like a wave, shattering me from the inside out. My whole body clenches around him, pleasure tearing through me with raw, dizzying intensity. I cry out his name, burying my face in his neck as I come undone above him.
He follows with a broken groan and a hard thrust, his body jerking beneath me, breath catching in his throat. He wraps his arms around me, holding me to his chest as the last shudders roll through him.
We stay like that—entwined, still shaking, still panting. His hands stroke my back in slow, reverent lines. I can feel him softening inside me, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t pull away.
I don’t want him to.
“I don’t feel shame,” I whisper into the quiet, my lips brushing his damp skin. “I feel… chosen.”
His breath hitches again, this time not from arousal, but emotion. I feel it in the way he hugs me tighter. The way his fingers tremble at the curve of my spine. Like my words undid something in him too.
And when I finally collapse fully against his chest, skin slick against skin, legs trembling and heart sore, he kisses my shoulder like a promise.
“I’m not letting go,” he says. “Not now. Not ever.”
And for one quiet second, I let myself believe it.
Even if it’s just for tonight.