I'm watching the fourth season of Orange is the New Black. The final episode ends. The sun has almost gone down. Finishing all the episodes of a show on Netflix makes part of me feel a sense of accomplishment and another part of me feel pleasurable disappointment. Yeah, as if I like feeling hollow, like an empty horizon. Maybe a milk jug feels relieved when it doesn't have to carry anything anymore-it's just a jug then.

I switch on a lamp beside the couch, but two blue beams of headlights peek through the front window.

A car pulls up. Probably just someone using the driveway to turn around. I don't look out the window in case the car has a Domino's symbol on the roof. My stomach grumbles.

If I fall asleep fast enough, I won't notice I'm hungry. I get up and start walking to my bedroom, past the front door.

Someone knocks at the door.

Last night I got a wrong number from Pizza Hotline. I'll just have to tell this other pizza guy that, sorry, this is not the house they're looking for.

A deep male voice calls my name from the other side. I freeze. I know that voice.

I'm wearing flannel pj bottoms and a tank top, but it'll have to do. I read in a dating advice book that men get turned on by chicks in pajamas. The book was written by a woman, though.

I open the door before I can change my mind. His all-black outfit hits me like so much darkness all the lamps in the world can't brighten. His tall frame and broad shoulders shield me from the breeze. There's yesterday's five o'clock shadow chilling on his strong jawline. The sunset paints a burning orange line around his metal arm. He's aged two years but he still looks perfect. He leans forward a bit and looks around my house over my head. A lock of long, dark hair falls in front of his eye.

"You're home alone," he says. There is so much I could read into his tone: teasing, longing. Maybe not. His mouth is a hard line.

I try to muster as much anger as possible. I need to sound believable. "Not anymore." I look him up and down, unable to resist the urge and hoping he doesn't notice.

His eyes flash and my heart stops. "I never heard from you."

My mouth almost pops open. "I never heard from you, what was I supposed to think?"

He runs a hand through his hair and turns to the side, exhaling. "Why is this so complicated?" he says, almost to himself.

I step outside, trying to avoid brushing against him, and close the door. I want to ask him, why now? But I just look up at him, all the questions getting stuck in my throat.

He puts his gloved metal hand on the door behind me, showcasing his muscular arm. The gesture feels territorial, but he's probably just exhausted. He looks down at me, eyebrows furrowed, as if he's trying too hard to mask the hurt.

Anger as a mask for pain. My chest rises and falls with my breaths. The two of us are more similar than I'd like to admit, and maybe that's why we keep meeting up like magnets. There have been other guys the past couple years, sure. The friendship with Steve is still there, although we only see each other once every couple months. It's hard to get over someone when you see them all the time. As for the other men who have come and gone, it's like the way I read magazines when I'm on the go, when I really just want to snuggle in bed with my favourite book. Have I occupied the same mental real estate in Bucky's mind?

"Only friends are allowed to show up at my house unannounced," I say. If I push him away for good, he'll never come back and maybe I'll have a chance of healing.

His other, bare hand comes up and presses against the door beside my head. I almost wince but I steel myself. Part of me wishes Steve would come and rescue me, but another part of me relishes the independence. I can handle this, and it ends tonight.

"I never wanted to be your friend," he says.

I try not to let my face fall. "Then what do you want?" My voice sounds a little helpless and I hate it.

He leans back, chest rising with his inhale. His bare hand slips away from the door. I cross my arms in front of me, ready to hold myself when he turns around and heads back to his car.

He takes my hand. "I'm sorry." He brings it to his lips.

The apology sounds genuine. His lips are soft against my skin and I'm flooded with memories of what they felt like against other parts of me.

I pull away. He's so strong, I know the only reason I was able to take my hand back was because he let me. "And?" Part of me wants to test him; I wish we had been an item for the past two years.

He looks up at the cloudless sky, then back down at me. I've never met anyone who uses silence so effectively. His expression says, are you going to let me finish?

"Sorry," I say. A breeze kisses my bare arms and I shiver. His hard, bare hand rubs my soft upper arm. He moved so quickly, as if it was a reflex rather than a conscious decision. There's a rare gentleness in the gesture. Maybe he is trying.

Vulnerability threatens to crack his hard gaze. "I want you. And I'll do anything to have you. To keep you." He takes my hand. "Stay here. Hold the door open. I have a surprise."

A little astonished, I hesitate. He turns around and walks to his car, so I open my door. I hear his trunk open. When I turn around, he's carrying two overstuffed black duffel bags. He carries them into the house and he makes a beeline for my bedroom.

"What are those?" I ask. I wonder if he's going to set up some sort of S&M swing set in my bedroom.

"I'm moving in."

I stand there for a full minute until he comes back to get more bags. "Uh, what?"

He pauses on his way to the door. "This place is a rental. I'll pay the rent."

I try to figure out how to reason with someone who's so stubborn. "It's not that simple."

"Fake it till you make it, doll face. Life only gets simple when we make it that way."

I'm not strong enough to pick up his bags and toss them back outside. I try not to enjoy the sight of his muscles flexing as he carries the heavy bags to my room. He jogs back outside and I watch his perfectly round leather-encased ass, kicking myself internally. Fuck, he's hot.

He grabs one last item-a cardboard box with enough duct tape slapped on it to suggest that he probably opts for gift bags rather than wrapping paper at Christmas-and slams the lid of the empty trunk. He jogs toward the kitchen and I close the front door.

"Call the cops, doll," he calls from the kitchen. My cell is in my pocket. If I really wanted him to leave, I guess I probably wouldn't be letting him walk into my life like this.

His footsteps head to the bedroom and I follow him, my own footsteps lighter than his. One of his duffel bags is lying out in the hall.

His leather shirt is laying on the floor. He's lying on my bed, his legs over the edge and his arms on my pillows. I avert your gaze before I'm tempted to look at the somewhat painful-looking line where his metal arm meets his torso. And of course his pectoral muscles-

"Couch," is all I manage to say.

He sits up and starts laughing at me. This man who has decided that my house belongs to him now.

"Catch," he says, his hand dipping into his pocket.

I catch a box that's about the same size as the dwarf hamster I took care of as a kid. The box is soft like a hamster, too. I open the box before I can talk myself out of it. Inside is a little rose gold-

And then he's standing over me, his bare chest emanating the most delicious scent. "Simple." He pulls the little-circle-from the box and takes my hand. He just takes it, not asking, again as if he makes up his mind and then expects me to come along for the ride.

It's a little like getting swept up in a current. There's a waterfall dangerously close, I'm sure of it, but I'm not afraid of falling off the edge. I'm afraid of crashing at the bottom.

He meets my eye when he feels my body tense. "It ain't meant to fit me, doll."

I maintain eye contact while he slips it on my ring finger.

"Now you're mine," he says.

I look down. It's actually a cute ring. The little square diamond is set like a diamond Shreddie and there are teeny diamonds all around it like leaves on an Elven queen's crown.

I decide it's too late to try to push him away. It's not like it's ever been effective. "It's actually really pretty," I admit, and it takes a lot of strength to just be vulnerable with him. I feel like I'm going to faint.

He sweeps his arms under my legs and back and carries me, princess-style. He doesn't throw me onto the bed; he just holds me, his eyes sweeping across my body before resting on my lips.

I consider ripping all the duct tape off that box in the kitchen and using it to seal my door so he can't abandon me again. But maybe this time he's serious. His eyes are so beautiful; I want so badly to trust him, because it feels more natural than breathing.

He breathes my name. "Will you m-?"

My stomach growls.

He pauses.

"Sorry, I'm just hungry. I haven't eaten in like six hours." I place a hand on my abdomen self-consciously.

He raises his eyebrows slightly, as if to say, six hours?

If he doesn't finish his sentence, I'll probably cry in frustration. I want to tell him to continue but I also know it's useless. I can't boss this man around.

"Marry me," he finishes. I gape at him, astonished. So this is what a marriage proposal feels like. It's like he took a giant axe and buried it in my life, one side pre-marriage proposal and the other side post-.

He throws me on the bed.

"Bucky! I haven't said yes yet."

He swaggers over and prowls up my body, straddling me. The waistband of my well-loved flannel pants is no match for his hands. He drops his head within an inch of the small layer of fabric that separates his mouth from my pelvis. He smiles, a dangerous almost-evil shining proudly in his eyes.

A bizarre kind of panic melts me to the bed. I run my left hand through his wild hair, the moon light glinting off the rose gold and his left arm. For the first time, it feels simple.

"You will," he says.