Eternity's Ending (our version of events) - Book One

Xander

"Did you feel that?" my head whispered to my heart.

A shared experience would make the occurrence more real.

"I did," replied my head with a serenity that comes only from finding the place where you belong.

Moments earlier I shot into his arms; closing the weeklong gap between our last goodbye and current hello. I refused to let go of him. I clung to the possibility of enduring love as tightly as I clung to his neck.

I eavesdropped on boastful arms swapping tales of the pleasure derived from holding him. The elation in their tone fought to compensate for the limits word imposed on the expression of their feelings. I wanted everything love could possibly offer and so much more. But I suppressed my greed; settling instead for his touch.

No fault was found in our embrace, despite us both being men. I inhabited the moment, banning all thoughts of past mistakes and future plans from encroaching on our fleeting coexistence. He felt right and at this time and in this place, he was mine.

I prayed he felt the same. I prayed he was consumed solely by me. All the while, I silently sought absolution for the possibility of my hunger conflicting with his wishes. The security of his hold convinced me no such forgiveness was required. I was grateful. Through blind luck or sheer genius, I had asked for and received the one whom I would never regret. As I inhaled him, I vowed to capitalize on the chance I had been given.

I grope the buttons of my alarm clock in search of a way to quiet the morning chatter. Three hours of sleep no longer does it for me. I used to be able to party until sunrise, power nap and attend my 7 AM lab without looking like shit. Now that the spring chicken phase of my life has ended, three hours of sleep only pisses me off. It's someone's fault, probably mine but I'm not accepting the blame. That leaves one person to take the fall.

I roll my eyes at the redundancy of my nights since meeting Vincent. It's always the same damn dream. It always leaves me with the same bittersweet feeling of needing something I do not want. And it always, always, always makes me feel like I'm supposed to experience the reality of the dream with Vincent.

He has been trying to understand why I just won't stay the night at his place for some time now. I show up around 10 PM. I won't sleep while I am there and I never stay past 1 AM without very good reason (and by good reason I mean marathon sex). He thinks I'm just afraid of letting people in. I can sense it in the patience he shows. He's wrong. I don't have daddy issues or abandonment issues. I just don't like sleepovers or intimacy at all really. I like my sleep in my own bed and unless we are in the throws of it, two is a crowd.

But this dream I've been having doesn't help Vincent's cause at all. It's just providing me with one more reason not to stay over. I don't want him to find out about it. He's too fucking perceptive not to piece something together, given the chance. And, I refuse to give him the chance to start thinking there's some truth in the cheesy pickup line he swears won him my "affection"; his word, not mine.

"You loved me in a past life," he said with absolute conviction.

He was fucking beautiful in a hand crafted to perfection, fit to be admired, let me have your baby because our children would be gods, kind of way. I don't even want kids but I felt like denying the world the blessing of our offspring would be a sin. My mocha features matched with his golden sand complexion. Not to mention all of the things I would get to do to him during the baby making process. If I did love, he would surely be the recipient of it. I planned to tell him as much. I was going to tell him to lose the lame ass pick up life first. I cased his entire body from the ground up searching for the very best points of entry, as he stood there awaiting my response. Thank God for grown ass men who wear fitted clothes so I don't have to work so hard to gauge what is underneath them. I took a few seconds to admire the way his shirt hung perfectly on what I imagined was an equally perfect chest before I looked into his eyes.

"Not if that's the line you used," I said, forcing myself to stay cool through my internal freak-out.

My tone was slathered in dismissal and I walked away without so much as excusing myself. I downplayed the familiarity of the faded blue eyes that seemed to know me by my soul. I labeled myself as crazy and labeled him as an asshole.

I called my best friend, Cassie, a few hours later because the encounter was still all I could think about. She would confirm the entire thing as pure foolishness. She would even join me in a laugh at his expense.

It wasn't until I awoke longing for a feeling of completion I knew only he would give me that I realized the joke was on me.

He had, in one line, managed to weave himself into my subconscious and that wasn't going to fly.