Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 437(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
I was pretty sure I was either dreaming or dying. Everything felt surreal suddenly, like the whole world had shifted.
“You want that?” I whispered.
“Desperately,” he said. I could see the pleading in his expression. He reached out and took one of my hands in his, and I felt a slight shake in his hand.
I took a step closer to him, and the feeling of his warmth was enough to crack through the shell I’d built up over the last twenty-four hours. Over the last twenty years.
I crushed my lips against his in a kiss, just as a big, warm tear fell from my eye.
Mitch wrapped his arms around me, lifting me slightly off the ground as we kissed, and I let out a little yelp.
“Oh my God, I missed you,” Mitch said in between peppering my forehead and cheeks with kisses. “I missed you so fucking much.”
“We’ve only been apart for two days,” I said.
“Exactly,” he said. “It was hell on Earth.”
I let out a quick laugh, shaking my head. “This can’t be real.”
“It is very real,” he said. “But you do owe me a game of pool.”
I pulled in a long, shuddering breath. “Christ, this is terrifying. Why is this so scary?”
“I’m really scared, too, Ev,” he said, reaching out to take my hand in his. “I think for the first time, I’m acknowledging that.”
“You never were good at admitting when you were scared,” I said.
“Yes I was,” he protested.
“Remember? At the Fourplex? You were always afraid to grab my hand.”
“But I always did it anyway,” he said, stroking his thumb along my temple.
I felt like there were bubbles fizzing throughout my entire body. “We’re both scared of the same thing, in the end,” I said.
“What, aliens? Zombies? Black widow spiders? Because spiders are no joke, Evan, I don’t care how many muscles I have, a spider can still take me down—”
“No, you big, dumb, beautiful person,” I said, squeezing his hand in mine. “We’re both afraid of getting our hearts broken.”
“You’re the only one who even has the power to break mine,” he said.
“Same to you,” I told him.
“So let’s be scared together,” he said. “If we’re going to be scared, it would probably be a lot better if we are doing it while we get to hug and kiss and fuck each other, wouldn’t it?”
“God, yes,” I said.
“I love you, weirdo,” Mitch said.
“You know I love you so fucking much.”
He kissed me, taking his time. I had to hold back from crying again, just from feeling how his lips rested against mine. There was nothing rushed about it. And for once, while I kissed him, I wasn’t thinking about how I’d probably lose it all in some amount of time.
Mitch was actually choosing me.
Maybe he’d always been choosing me, but he just hadn’t been aware of it yet.
He turned to head back inside the bar, and I expected him to let go of my hand when we walked inside. But his fingers stayed clasped through my own as we went back into the crowd, and even though we’d only been outside for ten minutes, it felt like entering a new world entirely.
He was walking me back inside as his person. We were walking in together, as a pair, not just as Mitch and Evan, two best bros.
And I swear, it was eight million times better than it would have felt walking into prom night with him as my date.
“All right,” he said as we sidled up to the pool table. We each grabbed a cue and set up the chalk. “Go ahead and break.”
I took the first shot and got two balls into a pocket right away. I went again and as I stood upright again, Mitch had come up behind me, kissing the back of my neck.
“Great shot, my love,” he said, dipping to take his own. Another ball made it in, and he took a second turn. I wasn’t even watching the pool table, though. I just kept looking at Mitch.
And after he stood back up, all he looked at were my eyes, too. He leaned against the pool table, leaning in to kiss me again, right in the middle of the bar.
“God, you feel so good,” I whispered.
“All of this feels so good,” he replied.
“Um… which one was I again? Solids? Stripes?”
“I already can’t remember,” he said, his eyes dancing across my face. He was looking at me with such a dreamy look in his eyes, and for some reason it made me blush.
“We have to remember who’s who.”
“Why?” he asked.
“To see who wins the bet.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“Well then we aren’t gonna know who wins,” I said, grinning.
“We both win,” he said, staring only at my eyes. “Will you be my boyfriend, Evan? For real?”
I swallowed hard. There was activity going on all around us in the bar, but in that moment, all I could see was Mitch.