We Go Way Back

chapter fifteen

WITH THE WINTER Exhibition steadily approaching, I've been drowning in practices, in classes, in showing the little bit I know of Seattle to my parents. It's definitely been a hectic week, the only time I slow down and stop is when I go to sleep, and even then, my muscles are so sore I barely rest. When it's too painful, I get up from bed, no matter how late it is, and I take a long, hot shower.

Today, though, I manage to change my day off around to make space for two very important things: to shop for décor with Corbin and to see my baby godchild on one of those alien looking screens. Rory says that we might find out the sex of the baby and I can't contain my excitement. Whatever it is, boy or girl, I'll love the kid wildly, but I just want to know. It makes it feel realer, like the baby isn't just a thought of Rory and Miles put out into existence.

First on the list is the shopping, though, and I'm almost as excited for it as for the ultrasound later. I may or may not have gathered a Pinterest board of all the ideas I think would look good on the apartment. It's a modern place, all white and black, which means it's the perfect canvas for a good makeover. I'm thinking of suggesting green accents, plants everywhere, maybe a touch of light wood. Corbin wouldn't like bright and brazen colors, he's a discreet man.

I wake up energized and excited, hurling myself off the bed quickly while Corbin grunts and grumbles in the sheets. The duvet is black, hiding the lower half of his body as he wriggles. I hurry to the closet and open the doors wide. My clothes are still in suitcases cracked open, I grab a pair of jeans with a few rips and a University of Washington hoodie. It's dark in the room and Corbin has his face turned to the window, so I change as rapidly as I can, jumping to get the jeans past my hips. I almost fall in the process, but I manage to stay upright.

Once again, my scrunchie is on Corbin's nightstand. I don't know how it got there, it must've slipped from my hair, and he found it. I kind of like it that he keeps it in his space. I kneel onto the side of the bed and lean over his body, ignoring all his nakedness, to try and grab my hair tie. I can feel the fabric on my fingertips, but then Corbin rolls from his belly onto his back, hitting his ribs against my stomach and I flop onto him. We make a human cross.

"You're a child," he yawns in the heels of my yelp, reaching for the scrunchie blindly, patting the nightstand until he finds it.

I push myself off him, sitting back, and open my hand to take it from his hands, but he swats me away. His eyes are just a sliver of light in the dark room, one more open than the other. His hand rises to my face and his fingers gently brush back a few strands of short brown hair. There's a shot of electricity splaying from my face, like lightning spreading across the night sky. It reaches my heart, jolting it, speeding it, crunching it until my entire chest hurts and breathing is hard.

Corbin sweeps my short hair back, above my ears, and brings it all together in his hand. I tremble so violently that I have to set my hands on his bare chest to steady myself, but of course, that doesn't help lessen the drumming in my ears, the pulsing on my neck. He's warm beneath me. I remember the last time I felt his skin in my palms like that and it sends me on a whirlwind.

He slides the scrunchie from his wrist and loops it around my hair until it's tightly secured. I need him to stop; the way his muscles move underneath me is driving me wild. But he doesn't. Instead, he brings his index fingers to my forehead and releases a few strands around my face.

"There you go, Delilah," he mutters, but his fingers never once leave my face. They fall from my temples, down my cheeks and jaw. "Perfect."

I might die, right here, right now. I spread my fingers wider, sprawling them over his chest. The wings of a butterfly, they seem like. His hands trail down my neck, my arms, until they're right over mine, over his heart.