October 1, 1999
When I awoke in Mr. and Mrs. Oppenheimer’s plush California-king for the last time, I smacked the alarm clock and rolled over to find Hans’s side of the bed already empty. I opened my eyes, expecting the space to be dark, like it usually was at six thirty in the morning, but noticed that a small reading lamp had been turned on in the corner of the room. It illuminated the overstuffed arm-chair next to it where a tall, troubled, tattooed man was chewing the fingernails on his left hand down to the quick while scribbling frantically in a small notebook with his right.
“Baby?”
Hans kept writing for a few more seconds, then lifted his head.
His eyes were bloodshot. Puffy. Miserable.
“Have you been up all night?”
Hans nodded once, then looked away. He wore his pain like a beautiful brass birdcage—on the outside for all to see but for no one to enter.
Not even me.
He closed his notebook and set it on the small table next to him, beside the lamp. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but Hans stared out the window anyway.
“Hey. Come here,” I pleaded, scooting over to his side of the bed and lifting the covers.
For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to budge, but with a heavy sigh, Hans eventually got up and came back to bed.
As he approached with the grace of an athlete, I notice that Hans was wearing nothing but a pair of plain black boxer shorts. Not leopard print. Not banana print. Not four-leaf clovers. Just black. Like his mood.
And mine.
Hans slipped under the covers and pulled me against his chest. My thigh slid between his legs, my arms wrapped around his torso, and my cheek rested on Freddy Krueger’s sneer. Hans stroked my upper arm with his left hand, giving me a glimpse of the new blue ink etched across the inside of his forearm.
Gripping his thick wrist, I gently pulled his arm away so that I could read the words he’d spilled while I was sleeping.
I was wrong. She cannot be contained.
She tricked me with her laugh and her falling ways.
I didn’t know until it was over.
She’s not a falling star. She’s a supernova.
The last line blurred as my eyes welled with the reality of our situation. I’d found my Prince Charming, and he was even better than anything I could have imagined. He loved me with every cell in his body, with every ounce of his soul, and he didn’t give a shit who knew it. But while we’d been busy dancing and admiring the stars, I’d lost track of time. The clock had struck midnight. My carriage had turned into a pumpkin, and my gown had reverted to rags.
I wasn’t Hans’s princess. Not anymore. I was just a poor girl from the wrong side of town, and my night of pretend play was over.
I pulled his forearm to my lips and kissed the words written there, careful not to blink an errant tear onto them while I tried to come up with something comforting to say.
“It’s not over,” was the best I could do.
Hans took a deep, shuddering breath and held me tighter.
“Hey”—I craned my neck back, trying to get a glimpse of his face—“I’m not going anywhere.”
I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.
“You’re going home.” It was the first thing he’d said to me all morning.
“You’re my home.” The words came immediately, and I was shocked to discover that they were true. My parents’ house no longer felt like home. My old room was as foreign to me as a motel suite. The things I’d left behind, relics from another life. Right there, in Hans’s arms—that was where I belonged.
“As soon as I turn eighteen, we can get an apartment together. That’s only…eight months from now. Then we can wake up next to each other every day for the rest of our lives. It’s not that long.”
“I don’t want to wait,” Hans grumbled into my hair. “I don’t wanna fucking miss you. I don’t wanna go back to living separate lives. This is the life I want. This one, right here, with you. Nothing has ever been more perfect, and I feel like I’m losing it. All of it. I feel like I’m losing you.”
“Hans…”
“I’m gonna see you, what, like, two hours a day? After work and on the weekends?”
“Not if you come to school with me.” The solution fell out of my mouth before I’d even given it conscious thought.
“What?” Hans pulled away so that he could make eye contact with me.
“It’s perfect!” I beamed, gripping his shoulder. “Come to GSU with me. We could see each other before school and between classes, and we could even go to Underground Atlanta every day for lunch.”
Hans blinked.
“Please?” I begged. “I’ll fill out your admission paperwork and everything.”
“I don’t know, baby.” Hans’s dark eyebrows bunched in the middle as he shook his head. “I hated school. And with my ADD—”
“You don’t have attention problems when you play music, right?”
“Riiight…”
“So, go to school for music. I can help you with the other classes.”
Hans narrowed his tired eyes at me and chewed on the inside of his lip. “Do they have a music production program? I do kind of want to learn more about recording.”
“I know they do,” I lied. I had no fucking idea.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Hans smiled. It was a worried, unsure, tiny, little smile, but there was hope behind his sleepless eyes. Just a glimmer. “Okay.”
I squealed and squeezed the shit out of his shoulder. “I love you!”
Hans pulled me against his chest and rolled back and forth with his arms wrapped around me. “I must fucking love you to be considering going back to school.”
“Hey, do you want to come with me today?” I asked, holding on for dear life. “You could probably sit in my classes with me, and nobody would care.”
“No, you need to focus,” Hans said, ironically choosing that exact moment to get distracted by my lack of panties. He gripped my bare ass under the oversize Phantom Limb T-shirt I’d slept in and positioned me so that I was straddling the rapidly swelling bulge in his boxer shorts.
“What are you gonna do today?” I asked in a breathy voice as he lifted his hips slightly and captured my earlobe between his teeth.
Releasing it, he murmured, “I’m gonna call the guys and see if we can get together and work on this song.”
“Your ballad?” I whimpered as his hips rolled against me again.
Hans nodded, and I felt him smile against my cheek. “I think it’s done.”