Mariah

The lavender scented bath water laps against the sides of the tub caressing me. The candle I lit on the vanity flickers in a delicate sway. Shadows are cast against the white tile walls of my bathroom and I close my eyes and just breathe in the peacefulness.

Lance dropped me off a few hours ago. He walked me to the doorway and kissed me like it was the end of a date. Like there was a promise of more. Like tomorrow might have him pulling up beside the curb to see me again.

Even though I love his angular jawline and fiery eyes and funny sense of humor, what makes me feel the giddiest is the way he looks at me.

I run a hand from the base of my throat, between my breasts, and into the water. It skims over my rounded stomach. It’s a part of me I’ve always hated—the pooch, I call it. No number of crunches, sit-ups, or planks would rid me of the excess belly fat surrounding my belly button. Tonight, though, with my hand clasped over that area, the grimace I usually wear while touching that part of my body is gone.

In its place is a small smile as I think of Lance placing kiss after kiss on my navel as if it were the sexiest stomach he’d ever seen. I remember how he touches me in every possible place and does so almost reverently. How when he looks at me, it seems like he’s only seeing a beautiful woman and not all the flaws I see when I look in the mirror or put on a pair of jeans.

Now that I know Lance, he’s not what I expected. He’s somehow more than all his parts combined. He’s more than the sexy, intellectual from school and more than the alpha, quick-tongued womanizer from the dating app.

I don’t think I was quick to judge Lance Gibson. I just think, maybe even hope, I might’ve pegged him wrong.

* * *

Lance

The water is hot as it flows over my body with the shower head on its strongest setting. The spray pelts my skin on a selection that works well in the morning to wake me up but right now is just another uncomfortable annoyance for me to have to deal with.

The look in her eyes tonight was my own doing. She wouldn’t look at me like that if I would just leave her alone. I know the way it is when we’re together, there’s this intoxicating chemistry that I’ve never experienced with someone else. A connection I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen another two people have—it’s that good.

This isn’t lust. I could write a book on that. It’s not an obsession, either, or one of those situations where you want someone you know you can’t have. Been there, done that—on both the giving and receiving end. What exists between Mariah and me is altogether different.

Am I in love with her? I hate to think so. Am I that hedonistic? Do I have that little self-control?

The fact that it even crosses my mind is enough to make me shudder despite the temperature of the water dousing me from above. I thought I had the love and commitment issue covered. Thought I had a shield up to prevent me from having serious feelings towards anyone ever again. But even with Britt, I didn’t feel this gone. I just know that when I think about the future, I associate with Mariah and it’s cast in gold.

It makes me sound like a pussy I know. But it’s the truth. And whether I’m a pussy or not doesn’t make it any less true.

In a perfect world, she would be the one for me. Hell, even in this imperfect world, she’s the one for me. But the one we live in is colored by an accident from years ago that made me less of a man than so many of my contemporaries. And while the thought of her with someone else makes me want to rip them apart limb by limb, I also want to smack myself when I consider what it will do to her if I keep up this charade.

She’ll have to decide at some point whether she wants me or wants the future she’s always imagined. Sure, I could let her decide as Blaire and Peck suggested. But that’s the biggest dickhead move—to force her to choose. To make her be the bad guy. Fuck that.

There’s no way I can put her in a position where she can’t win.

I’m not stupid. I know the shaded signals, what the meaning is behind her touch, the look in her eyes, the smile that she only gives me. She’s falling in love as fast as I am. And, if I truly love her, and I’m inclined to think I do, I can’t ask her to make that choice.