Miles took public transportation to the airport, hoping the commute would clear his head, but all he could do on the train to Charles de Gaulle was to wonder what would happen if he stayed.
Ezra had offered to charter a plane for Miles to stay just a little bit longer so he and Mei could see each other one more time, but he couldn’t do that to Ezra. The carbon footprint alone would haunt his friend for years to come. Miles considered missing his flight to give Mei a proper goodbye, but he couldn’t do that to his team. The affordable housing project mattered to so many people and he couldn’t let them down. Besides, a not-small part of him couldn’t escape the feeling that had settled deep in his bones all those years ago that the best expression of his love for Mei would be to let her go. Even if it killed him. So, in the end, he’d left his journal with Ezra and his heart with Mei.
It took him nearly half an hour to get through border control, find the right train to his terminal, and then another long maze of a line through security. It was loud and exhausting, but Miles was numb.
When Ezra and Candace had invited him to Paris, he’d said yes without thinking, and now he knew why. If he thought too closely about any of his decisions, he would realize that everything always came back to Mei. He divorced her to preserve her dreams. He wrote to her in the journal that was supposed to help him process his feelings — about her. He ducked through Chinatown at least a couple times a month just on the off chance he could catch a glimpse of her. He came to Paris — even though he was busy as hell — just to spend a few hours in her presence. He still loved Mei with every fiber of his being. But like he’d told her, love wasn’t enough.
He dropped into a chair at his gate. The flight wouldn’t start boarding for another half an hour, so he reached for his backpack, unzipped the middle pocket, and froze. For a second, his heart stopped when the pocket was empty, but then he remembered. It made him feel anxious to be without that book for the first time in years, anxious enough that he pulled out his phone, connected to the free Wi-Fi, and logged into his therapist’s calendar. He would need weeks of appointments to process the last couple of days.
When his appointment was scheduled, he navigated to his text messages just as one from Ezra arrived.
Miles started to type another message, asking about Mei, of course, but each time he typed out a message that made him sound more pathetic by the word, he deleted it and started again. Eventually, he realized that he didn’t want to text Ezra, he needed to text Mei.
She was still saved in his contacts as ‘Wife,’ and seeing that with an old selfie of them from an A’s game made his throat close with emotion.
One of the last messages was from three years ago, on their last night in the house.
He remembered that he’d wanted to tell her that he loved her then, but it hadn’t been fair, but he typed the message now.
“Did you get your Uncle Herbert a keychain?”
Miles startled at the sound of Mei’s voice. She’d yelled her question across the sitting area. Her face was damp and bright red, her bun was hanging half off her head, and she was stomping toward him.
“What are you doing here?” he called to her, jumping to his feet.
She rolled her eyes. “Catching a flight, duh.”
“Mei.” He didn’t know what else to say. He was feeling too much.
She pulled her bag straps from her arms and dumped it into a chair near him.
“Mei,” he said.
“Miles. Did you get your uncle a keychain?”
He bit his lip. “I forgot. I still have time.”
She rolled her eyes and opened a front pocket of her bag. She pulled out a small white paper bag and shoved it at him. “Here.”
He opened it and pulled out a 3D rendering of the Eiffel Tower. “He’ll like this. Thank you.”
“It’s not for you,” she said. “It’s for Herbert because I love him and I miss him. Just like I miss your mom, Nitra, Jermaine, and the other half of my family. Just like my parents miss you and my aunt still asks about you when she calls from China. Because we’re a family.”
Miles held his breath as she spoke but refused to get his hopes up or down. “Mei, did you see Ezra? Did you get what I left for you?”
She crossed her arms and licked her lips. “You mean, did your best friend give me the book of letters you wrote me instead of picking up the fucking phone? Yeah, I got it. That’s why I’m here now.”
“What? How—?” He didn’t know what to say.
But she was clearly over listening to him. Mei held a hand up and started speaking. “Just so we’re crystal clear, I didn’t want to get divorced, and I knew you didn’t want to get divorced. I should have asked for marriage counseling or something before I let you bulldoze over me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did, but I was too nervous to tell you that because I didn’t know what would make you stay or run away. But the joke was on me because you left anyway. And we’ve just been miserable as shit ever since. We’re both partially to blame for that. We’ll be discussing that in therapy.”
“We…will?”
“Yeah, because we’re getting back together. Probably gonna get remarried. Considering how much unprotected sex we had last night, hell, I might even already be pregnant. We’ll deal with that if it becomes an issue.”
Miles’s mouth went dry. “Aren’t you on birth control?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“I haven’t been on birth control since we broke up. I haven’t been with anyone else. And based on how much you came last night, I’m assuming you haven’t either.”
Miles shook his head.
“Good. Now that that’s settled—”
“Is it?”
Mei lifted her eyebrows. “It is on my end. Do you object?”
“I…” Miles laughed softly in disbelief. “That’s it? Seriously?”
“No!” she yelled but then took a deep breath to center herself. “Of course, this isn’t it, Miles. You broke my fucking heart, and just because I can understand why doesn’t mean that’s it. But I told you on our wedding day that I would love you through it all. I assumed that would be a mid-life crisis or maybe a gambling addiction, not a fucking divorce, but considering it took our best friends eighteen goddamn years to get it together, I realize it could have been worse. So, we need a therapist, and effort, and healing. We might be working on this for the rest of our lives, and that’s fine. As long as we’re together.”
On their second wedding anniversary, Miles and Mei spent two weeks in China with her parents. They’d been excited to visit some of her mother’s relatives, family members Mei mostly knew through letters and faded photographs and grainy Skype calls. The only downside to the trip was that they’d be staying with family nearly the entire time.
They’d had sex on the plane somewhere over the Pacific while the rest of the flight was asleep and the flight attendants were winding down. Miles had gone to the toilets first. Mei counted to ten and then followed him. She’d knocked lightly on the door, and he’d opened it with a sexy grin on his face. He’d pulled her inside, and they’d shoved their bodies together in the small room.
It was the least sexy place they’d ever made out, and yet Miles counted that moment amongst his happiest. He could still remember the scent of her perfume and his cologne overpowered the antiseptic smell of the airplane bathroom, the small space a blessing in disguise. Mei had shimmied out of her underwear, and he’d dropped his pants to his ankles. She’d perched on the metal sink as Miles held her against his body, her legs wrapped around his waist, and then they’d taken their time.
He pushed into her in shallow grinding motions that made her gasp, and he’d kissed each of those soft breaths away. They’d tasted murmured “I love yous” and then “right theres” and “pleases” and “fucks” on each other’s lips as they languidly chased their release together, just like they did everything else. They rocked into one another over and over, only to pull back when they got too close, stilling with him inside her, and eventually, their heartbeats settled. And then they started all over again. They made love in that airplane bathroom on the way to China for nearly an hour, long enough that a flight attendant had come to check on whoever was inside. Miles had been so close to coming that he had to bite his voice into submission to yell that he was perfectly fine while Mei clenched her pussy around him, trying to make his voice break. And then they’d come together, smiling at one another, knowing that if this was the last bit of privacy they’d have for the next two weeks then, at the very least, they’d made the most of it. Miles didn’t know why he thought of this moment out of all the moments he’d spent with Mei except that the last thing he’d whispered to her just before he came was that nothing coming could shake the love he had for her. And apparently, that had been truer than he could have known.
“My mom said you’re about to be homeless,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “My parents are kicking me out because I ate my dad’s leftovers.”
“What?”
“Glass noodles,” she said.
“Oh. Yeah, I mean…” He stopped speaking when she glared up at him. “Um, I can help you find a place,” he offered nervously.
Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s a start,” she teased. “What next?”
He shook his head and said, “Later,” placing his hands carefully onto her cheeks. Her skin was warm and clammy and her eyeliner was smudged and she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.
“I missed you,” he said, lowering his face to hers.
Mei wrapped her arms around his waist. “Prove it,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his and slipping her tongue into his mouth.
* * *
Miles was trying not to freak out in the moment, but he couldn’t fully believe what was happening.
“Relax,” Mei whispered, leaning into his right side.
He didn’t know how he’d done it, but Ezra hadn’t just gotten Mei a seat on the same flight, he’d managed to get them two first-class seats together at the last minute.
“I’m relaxed,” Miles lied.
She raised her head to smirk at him in disbelief. “Sure.”
She looked happy, and that loosened the tense muscles in his back. “Are you sure about this?” he asked for at least the fifth time.
“Yes,” she breathed, moving her right hand onto his chest, caressing the space above his heart. “I’m terrified and the hurt won’t go away, but I’ve always been sure about us. Are you sure about this?”
His heart lurched, and he cupped her face with his left hand. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into his touch. “I’m sure I love you. But love—”
“It will be,” she cut him off. “Our love will be enough.” She turned her mouth and pressed her lips against the heel of his hand and kissed her way up his thumb.
Her small kisses made Miles feel like electricity was shooting up his spine while all the blood in his body moved toward his groin.
“Why didn’t you ever move on?”
“Because I loved you,” she replied matter-of-factly between kisses atop the tips of his fingers while her hand massaged circles around his chest.
“But I broke your heart.”
“You did.”
“You could have moved on to someone who hadn’t broken your heart,” he said, as she reached up to pull her wobbly bun free.
Miles groaned and sank his hand into her hair, massaging at her scalp.
“I guess,” she said dismissively, a soft moan falling from her lips at his touch. “I am a fucking catch. I’m smart, I’m funny, my ass is small but my titties are perfect. I could have had anyone I wanted in college and I can do the same today. And still, I want you,” she whispered, opening her eyes to see him. “I want the life I built with you. I want to sing off-key in the shower and know that you’re listening, even though you say you hate it. I want to stay in bed all day with you when it rains, making love and listening to records. I want to listen to you speak broken Chinese to my cousins because they’re the only ones who can understand you.”
Miles sucked his teeth and rolled his eyes. “I’m not that bad.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Last I remember, you were that bad. Unless you’ve been practicing since we’ve been apart.”
He didn’t say anything, and the smile on her face grew. “Exactly.” She smoothed both hands possessively over his heart and then down his front. They both knew where this was going, but they had hours in the air and hopefully many years after that.
She leaned her head back, offering her mouth to him, and he happily bent forward. Their lips brushed together in a soft, dry tease.
“I never cared how much time we had together, so long as we were together. And if you need to hear me remind you of that every day, I will.”
“I don’t—”
“But if this is going to work again, I need something from you.”
Her fingers curled inside the waist of his pants, and he opened his mouth on a gasp. “Anything.”
“I need you to promise not to ever hurt me like this again,” she whispered sadly into his mouth.
It was what she said and how she said it that did Miles in. His favorite parts of Mei had always been her openness. It took a lot of courage to be as vulnerable as she was with him, especially in this moment, and he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve the gentle crack in her voice as she asked for his reassurance. He didn’t deserve another chance.
“I don’t—” he started until he felt her freeze in his hold. It broke his heart. “Nothing I say can make you believe me,” he said, moving his hand to the nape of her neck. “But I can spend the rest of whatever time we have showing you that I won’t make that mistake again. I can promise to do that.”
The tears were back in her eyes, but she relaxed against him again. Her left hand started moving inside his pants.
He hitched his breath as her palm flattened against the hardening length of him down his left leg. They’d thrown the thin blanket over their laps, but it could only hide so much. They just didn’t care.
“I’m sorry,” Miles groaned against Mei’s lips.
“I don’t want sorry,” she murmured into his mouth. “I want to not be as pathetic as Candace and Ezra used to be.”
Miles laughed against Mei’s tongue. “We can do that,” Miles groaned as she started stroking his length. “Fuck,” he sighed.
“I want that too,” Mei said, biting gently into his bottom lip. “I want everything with you,” she moaned into his mouth.