Summary: Though their chemistry class is now over, the chemistry between James and Rose is just getting started. Together, they navigate the highs of new love and the lows of coping with past trauma to forge deep and unbreakable bonds of love and commitment.
Chapter rating: M
Chapter 15:
When Rose stepped into her composition class on Monday afternoon, Elsa was the first person she saw. The petite girl was scrolling through Facebook on her open laptop and didn't seem to care that everybody could see that she was looking at memes.
"Er, hi," Rose said, wringing her hands in front of herself, suddenly terrified Elsa wouldn't remember her.
Elsa glanced up, her face brightening in a grin. "Rose! Hiya! I worried I'd scared you off last week. Wanna sit?"
She pointed to the open desk beside her. For a moment, Rose was taken back to when she'd first met James. He'd decided right off the bat that they were going to be friends and started talking her ear off, only to worry he'd come across too strongly.
"You remind me of my boyfriend," Rose said, sinking down onto the chair.
"A compliment, I hope?"
"The best compliment," she assured. "My boyfriend's wonderful."
"Good. Especially after how upset you were after hearing from your ex. Did you manage to relax this weekend?"
They chatted for a few minutes until the professor arrived and told them it was a free work period; if they wanted to leave, they were allowed to, but if they stayed, they had to be silent.
Knowing she wouldn't have the motivation to work on her essay if she left, Rose grabbed her laptop from her bag and opened up the list of topics she'd managed to brainstorm. The essay was due in just over two weeks; she really needed to settle on a topic and start writing.
Her inbox pinged with a new email from Elsa Robles.
Psst… share your Google Doc with me. I can help you decide on a topic and we can chat through the IM feature :*
Rose glanced at Elsa out of the corner of her eye; the girl was focused on her computer. Shrugging, Rose shared her document with Elsa and waited. It took half a minute for her to open the document and start a new messaging thread.
Ooh, I like the topic of wealth inequality. Or the way that poverty is actually really expensive. You could also talk about your experience with living in London/how access to affordable healthcare (unlike here in 'Murica) makes a difference when you're struggling to make ends meet. You could probably actually tie all of these topics together into one Giant Mega Awesome Essay.
Rose had to bite her lip to keep from laughing and typed, "Okay, you definitely remind me of my boyfriend."
If things don't work out with him, hit me up :*
"Haha! Will do!"
So what's the story with douche canoe ex? If you want to talk about it. It's easier through a computer screen sometimes rather than looking someone in the face and trying to speak actual words.
"It's a long story."
I get it. My last girlfriend was a piece of work. We were together for a year before she decided dating a woman wasn't worth the dirty looks from homophobic assholes, or the grief from her parents. She never actually told her parents about me. Didn't stop her from sleeping with me for eleven months though.
Rose winced. "That's tough. I was with my ex-boyfriend for two and a half years."
Oof, that's quite the commitment. How recently did it end?
"Three and a half years ago," Rose answered. "I probably shouldn't be upset about it anymore, but it was rough. He basically stopped coming home and told me through text he wasn't coming back because he'd fallen in love with another girl."
Damn. Okay, when I eventually make it to England, I'm looking him up and giving him a hard kick in the balls. You're better off without him. Asshole.
"Oh, I know. But still… I did love him. I thought we'd get married one day. And there was… other stuff, too. He wasn't the nicest of blokes by the end of it."
I feel ya. My girlfriend actually had the nerve to call me a "dirty dyke" before we split.
Rose's blood ran hot. "Okay, if I ever run into your girlfriend, I'll give her a hard kick up the arse too."
Haha! Thanks, babe :*
And, uh, I know I sound really chill about it all. But it was hard, y'know. It's been a year since Girlfriend From Hell, and sometimes it still hurts. So I get it, when you say it's still painful.
"I feel like I should be over it," Rose admitted. "How long will I let Jimmy (douche canoe ex, as you called him) hang over my life and make me upset?"
At least you're recognizing you don't want to be haunted by him forever. That's a great place to start.
Also, not to be too forward or anything, but have you considered talking to someone at the counseling center? Therapy gets a bad rap, but it's actually kinda nice. It's a safe place to talk through some wacky emotions with an expert that's trained to listen to people talk about wacky emotions. Venting to friends is nice, but sometimes a professional ear is more helpful.
"I never considered it. Maybe I'll look into it."
I highly recommend it. I go on a semi-regular basis to unload the shit that ties up my brain every now and then. It's really easy to schedule an appointment… no phone call necessary. And it's completely free to students. Lemme get you the link.
Again, sorry if I'm being too forward.
"You're not," Rose promised. "It's kind of refreshing to sort of skip the awkward "becoming friends" stage and go right to "talk about anything" stage."
My thoughts exactly. Life's too short to waste time. Either people will like me as I am and will like talking with me, or they won't, and they'll ignore me. I'm slowly getting more comfy about being myself.
"You're a rare gem, Elsa. I'm really glad I met you."
Dawww, you're gonna make me blush :*
oOoOo
Rose went back and forth on whether or not to make an appointment with the counseling center. There was something deeply intimidating about the idea of opening up to a complete stranger about her emotional duress, even though she logically knew that was the entire purpose of a counselor.
In the end, Rose decided the worst thing that could happen was that the session wouldn't be helpful, and she would still be in the same emotional state by the end of it. Whereas the best thing that could happen would be that she learned coping skills and would be able to work through her grief and trauma of the fallout of her relationship with Jimmy. Plus, perhaps she could use this as a practice round of how she would explain her relationship with Jimmy to James. Because she had tried to forget about Jimmy, she was sure her story would be incomplete when she eventually told it, thanks to long-repressed memories.
As Elsa had said, it was easy to schedule an appointment: the university's counseling services had a webpage portal to request an appointment. All Rose had to provide was a little information about why she was requesting the appointment, and times she would be available to meet with a counselor. She heard back the following day, with her first appointment scheduled for that Friday afternoon once her classes had finished.
She nearly backed out at the last minute. When she told Elsa she was getting cold feet, her friend threaded their fingers together and walked with Rose to the counseling center.
"I'll wait for you out here," Elsa promised. "When you're done, we can go get a giant milkshake."
"You don't have to wait here," Rose protested.
But Elsa flapped her hands. "I've got my laptop. I'll work on our comp paper. Besides, I want a damn milkshake. I'd wait hours for a milkshake."
Rose laughed, then squeezed her friend's fingers. "Thank you."
With a deep breath, Rose entered the office. A receptionist gave her an iPad on which she filled out the required paperwork. After that was finished, she only had to wait five minutes before she was called back by a dark-haired woman not much older than she was.
"Hi Rose," she said with a gentle smile. "My name is Lindsay. Follow me back to my office."
Her stomach rolled with nerves as she followed the woman through a labyrinth of corridors to a back office. The windows were open, letting in the cool spring breeze.
"Facilities hasn't turned off the heat yet," Lindsay said with a grimace. "Sorry if it's a bit warm."
Rose shook her head and settled herself in the seat that Lindsay gestured to. She couldn't help but notice the strategically-placed box of tissues that sat on the end table beside her.
"So what brings you to our office today, Rose?"
That short sentence was enough to make the backs of Rose's eyes prickle. Great.
"I, er, I've been… struggling lately," she said lamely, twisting her fingers in her lap until her knuckles popped.
"Struggling with anything in particular, or just generally?"
Rose licked her lips and took a deep breath. I got a text from Jimmy. It had been a week since he had first messaged her and, true to his promise, he hadn't texted her again. Yet. Every morning though, Rose awoke half-nauseous as she checked her phone, wondering if it would be the day that he lost his patience and texted her again.
"Last week, I got a message from my ex-boyfriend," she confessed, mortified when the stinging in her eyes grew worse. How was she already close to crying within the first two minutes?
"Mmm." Lindsay nodded but stayed quiet until the silence grew too uncomfortable.
"Yeah, it took me by surprise." Understatement of the year.
"Is this a boyfriend you met locally or…?"
Rose shook her head. "Nah, back when I lived in London. We… didn't part on great terms. Well. We didn't part on any terms."
There was something heavy and aching deep in Rose's chest. All the feelings of abandonment and worthlessness flooded through her, as though she was eighteen again and waiting, night after night, for Jimmy to come home, only to get a text—a text—from him saying he'd found a new girl and was moving in with her. Two and a half years of building a relationship with someone she had been madly in love with, gone, with a single message.
Why wasn't I good enough?
Her face crumpled. She snagged a few tissues and attempted to dry her eyes in the hopes her tears would stop on their own, but it was no use. Sobs shook her body, and through them, she haltingly blurted out the entire story of Jimmy, from its magical beginning, its lackluster middle, and its ugly end.
She told Lindsay everything she'd never said before, not to her mother, not to James. She talked about the shouting arguments they'd gotten into, the names he had called her, the condescension that dripped from his words whenever Rose had discussed plans for her own personal growth. She explained how violent Jimmy could get. It was never directed at her, but she'd had to replace quite a few mugs, decorations, and photo frames whenever he lashed out. She'd had to patch up several holes whenever he'd gone into one of his rages and kicked the walls.
It was embarrassing to tell the story and see what an unhealthy, toxic relationship she'd been in. Not only been in, but fought for. She had tried so hard to make things with Jimmy work, and it had all been for nothing in the end.
Looking back, she hated herself for staying with Jimmy as long as she had. For waiting around for him even though all the evidence was in front of her, telling her their relationship was over. She hated that she grieved the ending of the relationship when it was the best thing that had ever happened to her. And she hated that she had settled for so little, for believing that was all she was worth. If someone had tried to explain to her sixteen-year-old self that one day she would be in a relationship with someone like James, she would have laughed and told them where they could stuff it, because firstly, people like James didn't exist, and secondly, they didn't want someone like her.
Rose's voice was raw and she had a sinus headache by the time the session ended fifty minutes later. But despite how poorly she felt, the knot in her stomach was mostly gone. It had been more freeing than she expected to tell the complete story to someone else without worrying about being judged. That was why she'd never confided in her mother; Jackie had been furious with Jimmy when Rose ran home with her tail between her legs, but she knew her mother thought Rose was partially to blame for staying for so long. She hadn't had the mental or emotional energy to fight with her mother about it, or to hear a million variations of "I told you so". Therefore, Rose sugar-coated everything, or simply didn't speak of it at all.
With a follow-up counseling appointment scheduled for the following week, Rose left Lindsay's office and met Elsa in the waiting lounge. Elsa sprang to her feet and approached with her arms out. Rose gratefully fell into the hug, squeezing the smaller woman tightly as more tears prickled behind her eyes.
"Still wanna go for a milkshake?" Elsa murmured.
"Yeah. God, I look like a mess though."
Elsa shrugged. "It's a college campus. It's always full of students who have just finished a long crying jag. C'mon. Let's go get milkshakes."
As they walked to the little ice cream shop on the outer edge of the campus, Rose summarized the counseling appointment, confiding in Elsa many of the details of her disastrous relationship with Jimmy.
"God, now I really want to fly to London to find this asshole and kick him so hard in the crotch that his balls come out his nose."
Rose snorted and wiped her damp eyes. "I haven't cried this much since it originally happened. When Jimmy told me he wasn't coming back, I cried for a day, then I started packing up my stuff to move home with my mum, and I never talked about it again."
"Ahhh, the good old repression method. Works for a while, 'til it doesn't anymore. Isn't it so fun to relive all those memories again?"
Not deigning to reply to that, Rose continued, "An' I still dunno what to do about Jimmy. If he genuinely wants to repent, I think I should let him."
"You don't owe him anything. You don't owe him your time or your emotional energy. You have every right to text him and tell him to piss off, then delete and block his number and never contact him again. Or… or you can let him say his piece, thank him for apologizing—assuming the asshole even properly apologizes—and tell him you've moved on and would appreciate it if he let you move on."
Rose sighed but didn't respond since they'd reached the creamery. They stepped into the small, over-air-conditioned building that was decorated with red metallic tables and chairs that, when coupled with the black and white checkered floors, gave off a very retro '50s vibe. They each ordered the same thing, a large chocolate milkshake with whipped cream, and took their drinks to the outdoor seating.
For a while, they didn't speak, instead sitting in a comfortable silence as they watched the late-afternoon campus traffic. It was approaching the top of the hour, so the longer they sat there, the more students they saw bustling around the walkways, on their way to another class or home for the day.
James should be finished with his class by now, Rose noted when she saw a skinny man with brown hair that reminded her of her boyfriend. Grabbing her phone, she opened her message thread with James and typed, "I hope classes went well today xo. Can I come by your house for dinner tonight? I can bring takeaway. I'm craving Thai."
Drumming her fingers against the table as she waited for a reply, Rose took an absent sip of her milkshake and exited her conversation with James. In WhatsApp, she found Jimmy's name and pulled up his messages.
"I'm gonna text him," Rose blurted.
Elsa blinked for a moment, before understanding dawned across her face. She reached over and threaded her fingers through Rose's in silent solidarity.
Her hands shook so much that it took a few tries, but finally she managed to type, "Okay. I'm ready to listen."
Just as she sent that message, a new one from James came in.
Oooh, Thai sounds marvelous. As does spending the night with you.
Er. Did you want to spend the night? I'd love it if you did, but don't want to presume.
The giddy joy that always came from talking with James swelled through her. "I might be persuaded to spend the night with you." She added the winking kiss emoji.
"I seriously hope those moon eyes are directed at your boyfriend and not your ex," Elsa said.
"I'm not making moon eyes," Rose muttered, but she couldn't help the small smile as her phone buzzed again.
Good thing I can be veeeery persuasive then. He included the eggplant emoji and smirking face. She nearly snorted her milkshake up her nose.
"Mooooon eyyyyyes," Elsa sang. "Rose and Ja-ames sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G…"
"Shut up," Rose laughed, giving her friend a half-hearted shove.
Returning to her phone, she typed, "Let me know when you want me to come."
Oh, I *always* want you to come.
But any time after five is good. I haven't got any homework this weekend (woohoo!) so I'm about to head to the store for groceries and cat supplies.
"Sounds good. I'll text you when I've picked up dinner. Love you xo."
Love you too xo.
"Hot date tonight?" Elsa asked innocently.
Rose merely winked.
She passed the next half hour with Elsa, enjoying her milkshake and the company until the sun disappeared behind some buildings and it got too cold to stay sitting outside.
"Text me if you need some moral support whenever douchebag ex texts you back," Elsa said when Rose walked with her back to her dormitory. "And not to get preachy, but I really think you should talk to James sooner rather than later. Just sort of catch him up with everything that's going on so there are no surprises down the road."
"I'll try. It's hard, is all."
"I know. Believe me, I know. I don't relish the day I have to explain my rude ex to my next significant other. But it'll be good, in the end. And if James is a dick about it, I'll kick him until his balls come out his nose."
"Duly noted." Rose held out her arms and hugged Elsa. "Thanks for everything today."
"You bet. See ya. Have fun with your boyf."
Since it wasn't too far away, Rose walked to the Thai restaurant and placed an order for their dinner. Afterwards, she hailed a Lyft ride to James's house. His car wasn't in the driveway yet, even though it was nearly half past five. No matter. Using the key he'd given her at Christmas, Rose unlocked his front door and was immediately greeted by a furry black and gray mass.
It was difficult to kick off her shoes when Pippin rubbed the entire length of his body across her shins and ankles, chirping as he did so. When her shoes were successfully removed, she bent down to scratch him beneath the chin. His throat vibrated non-stop as he purred and drooled, arching into her touch. He'd been leaning so heavily into her hand that when she pulled away, he face-planted into the floor and let out a cry.
"You are the most pathetic excuse for a cat I've ever seen," she muttered. "C'mon. Dinner time."
Pippin jolted to his feet at the word "dinner" and he zoomed into the kitchen. Rose followed at a more leisurely pace, and was joined a few seconds later by a sleepy Merry. He chirped, then sat in front of his empty food dish.
Rose set the Thai food on the counter and walked to the closet that held the plastic tub of cat food. She filled the bowls in the kitchen, then went to the cat tree, where Gollum's bowl sat on the floor beneath it. The cat in question was tucked into one of the boxes, though he stuck his head out when he realized Rose was carrying the container of food.
"Hey you," she greeted, cautiously letting Gollum sniff her fingers.
He did for a few seconds, then bumped his head into her hand before he leaped out of the box and began pacing beside his dish.
Progress, Rose thought as she dumped his portion of kibble into the metal dish.
As she returned the tub of food to the closet, she heard the front door open and James called out, "Sorry boys, lost track of time. Ready for dindin? Who wants dindin? Boys? Pip? Hello?"
Rose skipped to the front door, where James was laden down with a dozen bags. Most of them were dangling from his wrists and fingers, though he had several cradled to his chest, obstructing his view. He looked in peril of dropping everything.
"Need a hand?"
He let out a yelp and flinched backwards so violently he banged into the front door with a painful thud. Wincing, Rose rushed forward to help as he scrambled to keep a grasp on the bags.
"Jesus!" he panted as she took the bags in his arms.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I texted you, telling you I was here. Guess you didn't see it."
They stepped into the kitchen and dropped the bags onto the table. Noticing the containers of takeaway on the counter, James said, "Ooh, smells yummy."
Together, they got all of the groceries that needed refrigerating put away, but didn't bother with the room-temperature foods. When he said there were still a few things in the back of his car, Rose followed James outside and called dibs on the bag of cat food over the two heavy-looking containers of litter.
"My strong, manly boyfriend," she cooed when he hefted the containers out of the boot. She meanwhile supported the cat food on her hip as though she were carrying a toddler, and rushed forward to open the front door for him.
He dropped the containers of litter by the door with a thump loud enough to rattle the floor, then he took the cat food from her and set it next to the litter. Before she could say anything, he had her cheeks in his hands and his mouth on hers, kissing her as though he hadn't seen her in years rather than two days ago when they met for brunch in the dining hall.
Not that she was complaining. Her body went hot and tight as his lips devoured hers, prickling delicious goosebumps across her skin. His touch was electrifying as one of his hands migrated to the hem of her sweatshirt, dipping it beneath the fabric to splay his broad palm across her lower back.
"Hi," he murmured, only getting that one word out before he devoured her mouth once more.
His lips pushed and pulled with hers, rougher than he usually was. It was a nice—more than nice—change of pace; his desperation fanned her own until she was panting and writhing against him. She snaked her hands beneath his jumper to grasp his hips, using him for leverage to press onto her toes to kiss him better. With every nip of his teeth at her bottom lip, every caress of his tongue against hers, liquid fire built between her legs. Impatient to move things along but not wanting to take control away from James, she reciprocated his kisses with equal fervor and went along with whatever direction he wanted to go.
He bumped his hips into hers, and she could feel the impressive length of him growing behind his zip. He nudged into her again, and she realized he was walking her backwards, guiding her to the living room.
Can't even make it to the bedroom. She willingly followed until the backs of her knees hit the edge of the couch. Without breaking the kiss, they sank onto the sofa. Rose lay on her back while James awkwardly hovered above her, one knee on the cushions while he stood on his other leg.
"C'mere." She grabbed the belt loops of his jeans and pulled until he fell into her with a curse and a squeak.
He was completely hard in his trousers now. Rose was trying her best to grind up into him, but the denim of her jeans was too thick for her to feel much of anything. James, however, grunted as he rocked his hips into hers, rubbing his erection into her again, again, again. She wrapped a leg around his hips to drive him harder against her, desperate for any bit of friction she could find. He must have realized this wasn't working for her, because he pulled back slightly and, with fumbling fingers, undid the button and zip of her jeans, then tugged the fabric down her legs, taking her knickers along for the ride. She arched her bum off the sofa to help, and was soon naked from the waist down.
"Rather eager tonight, aren't you?" she asked, breathless, as he scrabbled with the fastenings of his own jeans.
"I've been thinking about you all day," he admitted, his cheeks turning red with more than arousal. "I'd been wondering how I could ask to see you tonight without it… er, without…"
"Without it sounding like a booty call?" she asked innocently.
He winced, but ultimately nodded. He began working his jeans and pants down his hips when he suddenly stopped right before the good part. His happy trail led to a tantalizing peek of dark hair that Rose was impatient to see in full.
But he dropped his hands away from his clothes. "God, I didn't ask… is this all right? I'm sorry, I just sort of… jumped you at the front door and…"
"This is more than all right. I am a very willing and eager participant," she promised. "Can we get on with it now?"
James's shoulders loosened as he grinned at her and yanked his trousers down only far enough to free up all of the necessary parts. Kneeling between her thighs, he lazily stroked himself with one hand while his other dipped between her legs. He swore when he felt how ready she was. With no more delay, James guided himself into position and sank into her wet heat in one long, smooth motion.
It was hard and fast, with James setting a punishing rhythm he rarely initiated. Rose was so glad they were at his house rather than her flat, since she was sure her neighbors would not have appreciated hearing the range of noises they were making. Hell, they were loud enough that the cats scampered down the hall to James's bedroom.
Every subsequent thrust of his body into hers was better than the one before, mounting her pleasure higher and higher until she could barely catch her breath. Consciousness briefly left her as, with a cry, she was lost in the tidal wave of ecstasy and endorphins. She was only vaguely aware of the relieved grunt James let out, of the sensation of him releasing deep inside her.
Rose was panting and sweating, her thighs burning from squeezing his hips so tightly, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Not when her mind was blissfully blank and empty of anything that wasn't the pleasure James had wrung from her. He, meanwhile, trembled above her, making no move to get up.
She absently stroked his damp hair and kissed his flushed forehead. "Dinner's probably cold."
"Mmm. S'what microwaves are for."
"Reheating food 'cos we got distracted with shagging?"
"Seems to be its most recent purpose." He let out a full-body sigh and tilted his head up, resting his chin on her breast over the sweatshirt they hadn't taken the time to remove. "Not complaining about that. When people said sex is better than food, I thought they were mad. But here we are, and I wouldn't mind going hungry if it meant I could make love with you."
Rose beamed and couldn't help but haul him up for another kiss that turned into two that turned into a hundred. (It's not like dinner could get any colder, after all.) They managed to remove all of their clothing this time, leisurely exploring every inch of newly-revealed skin, before joining together, rocking and thrusting and gasping their love until they tipped over the edge of ecstasy again.
By the time they came down from that second high—less intense but no less pleasurable than the first—they were both exhausted and famished. They played rock-paper-scissors to determine who would go warm up their dinner and bring it out to the living room. James lost, and though he grumbled about being forced to move off of a beautiful, naked Rose, he dutifully fetched their food. Neither of them put clothes on, although Rose did excuse herself to the loo to relieve her bladder and to clean up a little; she was rather… sticky.
"If you had to get up anyway, you should've been in charge of getting the food," James whined when she came back to the living room. He was sitting, stark naked, on a nest of blankets in front of his coffee table, where there sat two steaming bowls of pad thai.
She stuck her tongue out at him. "Don't be a sore loser."
"If anything, you're the one feeling sore," he said, with an insufferably smug smirk.
Despite the dull ache between her legs and the burning in her thighs, Rose frowned quizzically and said, "Sore? Why on earth would I be sore?"
He pouted. "Clearly I'll need to try harder after dinner."
She wasn't sure what had gotten into him to make him particularly horny this evening, but she wasn't going to complain if he wanted to go again once they'd eaten. It had been a while since they'd spent an entire night worshipping each other. Even if they didn't get around to actual sex, it would be nice to merely twine her naked body with his and bask in the intimacy of being in love with her best friend.
Atop the pile of clothes it had fallen onto when James was tugging off her jeans earlier, Rose's phone vibrated with a new text. Glancing at the notification preview, she saw it was from Jimmy. She found she didn't particularly care about what he had to say. Not right now, at least, when she was busy enjoying herself and her date night with her boyfriend.
"You can get that," he said when she hit the side button on her phone, marking the screen go dark. "You know I don't mind."
"I mind," she said simply, resting her head on his shoulder. "It can wait."
With a humming giggle, he kissed the top of her head then snaked his arm around her waist, pulling her closer into his side. She went willingly, shivering against the goosebumps that prickled across her body at so much of his skin pressed to hers.
"I could get used to this," she murmured, resting her palm on his thigh and absently rubbing his leg hair the wrong way.
"What, shagging? That's good to know."
She pinched him. "You arse. I meant… this." She gestured vaguely to the living room. "Living here with you. Permanently. Not checking in to make sure I can come over. Calling for takeaway 'cos we can't stop having sex. Making naked weekends a thing. Cohabitating. Being domestic together. Y'know. Being stupidly, head-over-heels in love with each other, forever. I don't want to go back to my flat because whenever I'm there, I wish I was here, with you. It's stupid, but I get lonely when I'm not with you. And not lonely as in I physically can't function without you, but lonely b'cos I'd rather be with you. Even if we're sitting in complete silence working on our own stuff, just knowing you're there with me is enough."
James was quiet for a few long seconds. Long enough that Rose began to feel a bit self-conscious, so she twirled her fork through her dinner and stuffed a huge bite into her mouth.
"You know how to make a bloke feel all loved up," he said, and Rose was alarmed to hear his voice break.
His eyes were sparkling slightly, brimming with unshed tears. He blinked them away after a few seconds and waited until she swallowed her food before bending down to peck a feather-light kiss to her lips.
"I'm serious," she insisted.
"Oh, I know. My brain sort of short-circuited though. It's either give a blasé reply or start blubbering, so I'm going for the former, ta."
Rose snorted. She nuzzled into his shoulder so she didn't have to look at him as she continued, "Well, I'm gonna keep being sentimental, so go get the tissues if you need 'em. But I need you to know how much I love you. You wax poetic at me all the time, so it's my turn to wax it at you. Because I can't bear the thought of you not knowing or understanding exactly how loved you are. You're everything I never expected to have… never thought I deserved to have…" Now she was getting blubbery. Great. "So thank you. For being you. For loving me. For letting me love you."
"Oh, stop it," James said, his voice thick. He was blinking rapidly, his eyes rimmed with red. "God, you're making me weep. What on earth did I do to warrant such emotion tonight?"
Rose shrugged, even though she knew the answer. "You are… the best life partner."
"Well, right back at you," he replied, blotting his eyes and nose with a napkin. "I thank my lucky stars every night that you came to a university in America and made the poor decision to enroll in a chemistry class you had no business in taking and that you didn't think I was a mad stalker for ambushing you outside the loo the day we first introduced ourselves."
"Welllllll," she said, stretching out the word as he often did, "I did sort of think you were mad at first. Endearing, though."
"Thank heavens for that," he grumbled, feigning affront. He chewed on the corner of his cheek for a second before he said, "When I realized I was attracted to you, I had every intention of… well, not lying, exactly… but pretending I had more relationship experience than I actually had. I created all these elaborate ways to woo you, if I ever plucked up the courage to ask you out. But then as I fell in love with you, I found that I didn't want you to fall in love with a version of me that didn't exist. And, well, you made it so easy to be myself around you. No fibbing needed."
"I'm glad. I love you just as you are."
Turning away from her mostly empty bowl of pad thai, Rose pivoted in one smooth motion until she was straddling his lap. His hands went to her hips, running them up and down her bum and thighs. She draped her arms loosely over his shoulders, letting her fingers play with the hair on the back of his head, before she leaned down and planted a kiss to his lips. His fingers dug into her arse as he opened his mouth for her, letting her explore at her leisure.
She had always loved kissing and being kissed. In all of the relationships she'd been in, serious or casual, kissing had been one of her favorite things to do. Sex was wonderful, of course, but the simple pleasure of her lips pressed to her partner's, her hands on their body, their breath sharing the same space… it was intoxicating. Some of her partners had been more impatient than others, wanting to progress straight to shagging after hardly any kissing, but James seemed to enjoy kissing as much as she did. He reciprocated every ounce of passion that she brought to the kiss, as if twining his very soul around hers as they lost themselves in each other.
Her mind emptied of anything apart from him until minutes had passed without her realizing it. A shift of her hips told her how interested he was getting in the activities that would follow the kiss; in response, her core went molten with desire. A dull throb that had nothing to do with the two rounds of sex they'd already engaged in pulsed between her legs, growing hotter and more insistent the longer the kiss went on.
And still he didn't try to speed things up. He didn't guide her hips into a grind against him, nor did he go right in with his fingers between her legs to hurry her along for the main event. Instead, he was enjoying the ride, letting her set and keep the pace, matching it beautifully.
Her phone buzzed again, and she paid it no mind. She couldn't be bothered to give her attention to anyone but James. Why would she want to focus on anything other than drawing the sweetest of moans from him?
As Elsa had told her, she didn't owe Jimmy anything, least of all her time. Even though she said she was willing to listen, she felt no urgency to hear what he had to say.
"I love you," she murmured to James, placing her mouth on the side of his neck. She began to suck, hard enough to make him shudder, but not hard enough to leave a lingering mark. "Can we take this to a bed? I'd like to kiss you everywhere and it might work better if you're lying down. 'Sides, a bed's comfier than the floor and has more room than a couch."
"'Course," he rasped, blinking up at her with dazed, heavy-lidded eyes.
She planted one last kiss to his shoulder, then, with great effort, pushed herself to her feet. She reached down and helped tug him up before she twined their fingers together and guided him down the hall.
Her phone lay forgotten on the heap of clothes in the living room, where it continued to buzz with new messages that Rose wouldn't see until the following morning. Even then, she only vaguely skimmed them, unable to devote much attention to them as she got ready for her morning work shift at the grocery store.
She'd read enough to see the sincerity of Jimmy's messages, or at least the feigned sincerity. Given how badly she had been burned, she refused to let her guard down completely but was eager to finally end this chapter of her life and move on to the next. At long last, she was putting many long-lived demons to rest, closing the door on her past with Jimmy and paving the path to her future with James.
As always, if you've read this chapter, I would love to hear from you.