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He slowed, and then pulled away to study my face. “Nova, I—”
“I want you to stay with me tonight. Please?”
Without another word, he locked the car and followed me inside. We continued to kiss in the elevator, and also as we stopped in front of room 315, and the kissing intensified with the shutting of the door.
His body firm against me, his tongue tangling with mine—things were going great until he suddenly stopped.
“I-I shouldn’t do this,” he exhaled, turning away from me. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m trying to respect your wishes, Nova.”
“I know, and I appreciate that,” I said, grabbing his hand. “But right now, those wishes are kind of a little hard for me to respect. I love you too much.”
He gradually faced me again. I knew I very well couldn’t stand there and tell him this wasn’t what I had in mind when I came to North Carolina. I knew I’d be lying. I wasn’t okay with us just being friends, and I wanted him to know I still felt that way.
“Nova, I can’t make any guarantees. You broke up with me and I understand why. You were right. What I was doing to you wasn’t fair. And ever since then, I’ve known how wrong I was before. It was kind of a wakeup call for me, and I completely deserved it.”
“It wasn’t meant to punish you—”
“I know, but I’m a stubborn guy, so I’m only thinking about my own broken heart right now.”
I smiled when he did, and just that little moment assured me everything was going to be okay.
I slid my hands around his neck and stood against him. “I love you, Austin. I always will. But I want you to know I am one hundred percent committed to you. The circumstances around us don’t matter because I will never change how I feel. I really am sorry if you’ve felt like I haven’t supported you in your career. I thought I did, but if you feel I haven’t, then I respect your concerns. And I want to work on that, just so you know. I can’t stand being apart from you anymore. I want for us to be together again.”
He was silent at first, softly running his fingers through my hair. I could see the sadness in his eyes, regret. I could be criticized for “chasing” Austin, but that wasn’t the case. I was being strong for the both of us because I truly believed that’s what a solid relationship was all about.
Sometimes one of you needs to pick up the slack when the other is struggling, and I knew he’d been struggling.
“I doubted us,” he admitted regretfully. “You were right about that. Because I doubted myself. I thought I needed to be more for you. I wanted to be more for you. And I thought for sure you would go to school, so I felt like I had time to get my shit together without holding you back at the same time.”
“I told you—”
“I know. You told me you didn’t want to, but I thought maybe you weren’t able to stick to your resolve as well as I could.”
His smile made me laugh. “Definitely not true. My resolve only changed.”
“Yeah, I see that now. Jack told me you applied to a few schools and got into them all, and then you really did choose to not go.”
“I’ve only wanted you. I’m happy with that. I love working for your family and it’s because you gave me that. Being there, with you, is a dream come true, and you have no right to tell me it’s not.”
He bowed his head, ashamed. “I know, and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me then? For being put on my back burner?”
“I will always forgive you. As long as you learn from your asshole mistakes.”
I loved his smile. It was a mixture of amusement and meekness. “Deal.”
We kissed again, but it wasn’t the intense, passionate kind like before. It was more of a silent commitment to one another, and I felt more at peace than I had in a long time.
“So how do you like North Carolina?” he asked, running his thumb tenderly across my jawline.
“I like it very much because you are here.”
“So...what do you think about living here next season? You don’t have to the entire time, but what if you somehow split your time with Bakersfield?”
I was so overjoyed, it made me cry. I laid my face against his chest and let my tears wet his shirt.
“It’s no guarantee, though,” he added, softly running his hand against my back. “I don’t even know where I’ll be next season if I don’t get my shit together on the track.”
“You just do what you can and things will work out how they’re supposed to,” I whispered against his chest.
“Yeah, I’m beginning to feel that way.”
“Like you have no control over anything?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, this is what we do have control over—you and I—and I think it’s best to just stick together. There’s strength in that.”
“I agree,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “And I’m sorry for being such an asshole.”
“Were you really waiting for me come back to you?”
He laughed uneasily. “You were pissed. I figured I really blew it, and like I said, I deserved it.”
“You started to blow it when you shut me out before that.”
He groaned. “I know, I know. I was stupid. But I didn’t plan on being an ass forever. I hoped groveling for your forgiveness in November wouldn’t be too late. I love you, Nova. I really thought I was trying to make everybody get what they wanted, and instead, just made things worse.”
“Let’s not focus on that anymore, okay?” I asked, looking right into those beautiful green eyes. “I’d rather just be happy you finally got a fucking clue.”
He laughed at that while nodding his head. “Yeah, me too. But I’ve never stopped loving you, Nova. Honest to God, I never have. And it killed me to have things the way they were. I just didn’t know how to juggle both. I really didn’t. I think I panicked. And since I’d finally made it to this level, I chose that to focus on first. I feared it was the only chance I was going to get. I’m really sorry—”
“Can we just move on? There’s something else I’d rather talk about right now. Or...maybe no talking,” I smiled, grabbing his shirt to make him kiss me as I led him to the bed.
He carefully removed my clothes, piece by piece. His lips traveled from my collar bone, to my shoulders, all the way down to my thighs. My skin prickled with goosebumps with every touch, and when his tongue reached my core, the pleasure was so instant, I released an unexpected moan.
The sex that night was intense and exhilarating, but also unbridled in the best ways possible. The emotional connection combined with the carnal bliss of his body in mine was inexplicable. The wild passion I felt when I took control as the lover in charge was empowering. Maybe I’d missed sex with Austin more than I wanted to admit, but I felt time away from him had been the best thing ever. Distance had made my heart grow extremely frustrated...but it was definitely quite a bit fonder.
When we were wrapped up in each other’s arms for the night, it felt like home. I knew he owned my heart and always would. No matter where we lived or what we were doing, there was no doubt it needed to be done together.
Because together was the only solid thing that made sense.