Count Your Lucky Stars •CHAENNIE•

Chapter 19

Roseanne stretched an arm out toward the nightstand, rolling onto her side when her fingers skimmed nothing but smooth wood, her phone too far to reach.

"Mm, where do you think you're going?"

One of Jennie's arms wrapped around Roseanne's waist, dragging her further into the bed, snuggling up close behind her.

"I was trying to check the time. We don't want to be late to dinner."

Jennie burrowed even closer, like merely close wasn't close enough, like any amount of space between them was unacceptable. Roseanne could relate.

This was all so new.

Not just lying here, wrapped up in Jennie's arms, but actually having what she wanted.

For so long, everything she'd wanted had been unattainable, either by some huge, insurmountable margin, pie-in-the-sky dreams, or by a smaller gap, fingertips skimming, just shy of grasping. Almost was always worse, the hope it stirred leading to a harder let down when it, inevitably, didn't pan out. A scholarship to the school of her dreams. A relationship with Jennie. All the little desires she'd given up here and there, incidents explained away as coincidences until the pattern became clear, irrefutable evidence stacking up against the small measure of hope to which she'd held fast. Sacrifices she'd made thinking they were worth her happily ever after with Mark, bargains she'd made in the name of love that became lies she told herself because the truth was too grim. Only to discover that happily ever after, in and of itself, was a sham.

After a certain point, wanting became pointless when having remained hopeless. Why bother? Why continue to put herself through constant disappointment? Maybe some people just weren't meant to have what they wanted, to be happy. So she'd settled on the next best thing, little crumbs of contentment where she could find them. Never wholly satisfying, but enough to get by on, to subsist.

But now . . .

All in. Warmth flooded her chest. Jennie wanted her.

Maybe disappointment wasn't an inevitability. Maybe everything in her life so far had happened for a reason, the way it was supposed to. All those little disappointments not the dead ends she'd thought, but turns she had to make, all leading her to something bigger, something better, something lasting, something real. Hers. A perfect convergence of being in the right place at the right time.

Jennie pressed one chilly foot to the back of Roseanne's calf, her other foot still elevated, the pillows beneath it slightly askew, one hanging off the edge of the bed, in danger of falling.

"I don't want to get up," Jennie complained. One hand swept the hair away from the back of Roseanne's neck, icy fingers sending shivers down her spine. Warm lips brushed against her nape, feather light, and her skin prickled all over, Jennie's touch giving her goose bumps. "I'm cold and you're warm and this bed is too comfortable."

It was, but she had a feeling she could've been lying on a cinder block and she'd have been equally as reluctant to move, her desire to stay in bed having less to do with the comfort of the mattress and warmth of the duvet and everything to do with having Jennie wrapped around her.

"We skipped lunch."

Jennie's mouth curved against her skin. "Debatable," her voice lilted, sounding coy. "I ate."

Laughter burst from between her lips. "Jennie."

"What?" Jennie shifted, rising up onto an elbow, peering down at Roseanne with wide eyes, a placid little smile on her lips, the picture of innocence, if Roseanne didn't know better. The left corner of her mouth twitched, eyes creasing in amusement, cracks appearing in her composure. "I did."