Touch & Go | Herophine

Goodbye

Josephine

I've got to be sleeping still. Dreaming, obviously. There is no way I'm waking up in Hero's arms to a marriage proposal. I'm so confused. "Sorry, what?"

Hero smiles. "You heard me."

I sit up and shimmy across to the far side of the bed. Clearly this is a dream. I wonder if I can get out of here and get coffee before he says anything else. I start inching out of bed, but then Hero is sitting up himself. The sheet falls across most of his lap and one thigh. It leaves the other heavily-muscled leg and calendar-worth expanse of the rest of him there for my viewing pleasure. 

He's so beautiful. He just asked me to marry him. Time to snap out of it. 

I grab my robe and wrap it around myself as I back across the too-small space. "Jo? Where are you going?" Hero rakes his fingers through his tousled mess of hair. 

Mexico? Switzerland? Canada? Anywhere I can avoid having to talk to the guy I've loved my whole life. A guy who happened to lose him mind while I slept. "The lobby. The have coffee."

He rubs his palm across the lower half of his face, but I can see the hint of his smile between his fingers. "And you're going now? Like that?"

Glad someone is enjoying this. The breath leaves me in a frustrated huff. 

One eyebrow raised, Hero stacks a couple pillows against the headboard and leans back. He pats the mattress beside him. "Come here." I hesitate. I shake my head. "Okay, then I'll come to you."

He climbs out of bed and crosses to me, very naked and very hot. I hold his gaze. "Hero, I'm not going to marry you." My voice is clam. Clear. There's no room for misunderstanding.

"Why not?" He cups my cheek in his palm, leaning in so we're eye to eye. "Honestly, I don't know why I didn't see it before. This is perfect, Josephine. We're completely compatible. I mean, how many of your more 'conventional' couples get along as great as we do? We like the same things. We've been practically living together for the past six years. Sharing meals, our free time-"

"Hell, you even show up at my apartment after you've finished screwing whomever you happened to pick up that night." Fuck. That came out with more bite than I intended. I swallow, thinking over my next words. "Hero, you're right. This is the perfect setup- at least for one of us, huh?"

His brows pull together, his voice going deeper. "That's over, Josephine. If I'd had even a clue about how you felt, I'd never have been so insensitive. Now that we're together though-" He shakes his head. "I don't need anyone else but you."

God if only that were true. Hero never commits, and he's not about to start doing it now. One of the things he loves about me is that I never keep him from anything. I never stand in the way of what he wants. Well, except now, but that's different. 

"I'm serious, Jo. I haven't been with anyone else since we've been together. I haven't even been tempted to. And if you want the honest truth. That night after I learned about your date here, I tried to make myself look at another woman the way I had before. I couldn't do it."

My breath catches. That shouldn't mean anything to me. It shouldn't tug at all the places I'm trying to shut off from this man. But God help me, it does. "Hero."

But then the aching begins all over again. If he wants me like that, why can't he love me? How is it possible for him to separate sex and emotion so totally? "Hero." I stop, sigh, and start again. "I don't get it. If you think we're completely compatible, that we like all the same things, get along better than other couple and have the perfect sex life that makes you want no one else. Why don't you want me? The way I want you?"