Cutie With a Booty

29. The Earth and the Sun

Prepare yourselves to be sad. Or maybe it was just me. I cried really hard when writing this chapter, then harder when I edited this chapter. It was just hard to write but I wrote it. So sorry if you guys cry. Maybe it's just me because these are my characters. I'm close to them. But sorry in advance. Tell me what you think.

Waking up in Justin's arms made me feel whole and complete, then determined and alive. I have to make things right. I have to tie up all of our loose ends, starting with Richard. I texted him this morning but of course he didn't respond he said he'd be busy this whole week and most of next week also. It's starting to grate on my nerves. Justin leaves for New York this morning and when he returns Richard has to be gone.

Lost in thought, I flicked on the blender, watching as all of the ingredients started mushing together to form a smoothie. The timer on the oven went off and I put on an oven mitt and took out a tray of cookies.

Looking thoroughly pleased and sexily thwarted, Justin walked out of my bedroom while stretching, his hair ruffled. I smiled at him and he slid in beside me, kissing my bare shoulder that my nightgown exposes.

"Good morning," he greeted, voice rough. "What's all this?" he asked, reaching for a cookie and immediately making it disappear. He closed his eyes and moaned in pleasure. My smile grew wider.

"We never got that chance to have cookies and smoothies." I turned off the blender.

"Technically it was movies and smoothies." He moved to lick chocolate off of his fingers but I grabbed his hand and did it for him. Justin's eyes lit up and then turned dark.

"Technicalities bore me," I whispered, letting his hand go. "What will you do in New York?"

"Hmm," he muttered, distracted. I stared back at him innocently. "I have to meet with some out-of-state contractors about the performing arts center. I want to hire some friends up north that I know but they won't agree off of a call. I have to actually show my face to them." He shrugged. "They'll want to go bar hopping and shit like that but I'll do it because I have to entertain them in order to get them on board."

"They're your friends?"

"Yeah, we all went to college at MIT. We had good times." His face lit up in reminiscence and I poured the smoothie into two glasses, sliding him one. Justin sipped it and then said, "Not as good as mine."

"Entirely subjective." I waved it away and Justin snickered.

The rest of the morning Justin and I talked and laughed; eating all of the cookies and catching up on things we have missed in each other's lives. Justin told me all about how hard it was to finalize his blueprints and how now he is trying to get together a team to start building at least the base and frame of the building. When summer hits the real building can begin.

I told him about how I'm preparing for a summer log but I'll have to move super-fast I only have all of April to finish the log because it has to be published and sponsored by the end of May so that it's ready for the moment summer hits.

After that discussion it grew intensely quiet. I know for a fact Justin is thinking about all of the time we've spent a part because of me. How things would have been easier if we had done them together or had one another to lean on. I know he's thinking about all of the pain, the heartache, the hoping, the crying, the devastation, and the anger. All of that just leaves an empty void, a taped off crime scene that no one should dare to venture into, and so much silence. I looked up when Justin's hands covered mine.

"Look, this is going to be hard. We're both going to have to make some changes personally to make this work," Justin said, squeezing my hands. "But, Kasey, I really do love you and I will do anything to make this work, to give us a chance. I'll always fight for us." His eyebrows crinkled in together and my heart clenched.