Bound to You

Chapter 39

We spent four perfect days in Paris. Between the food and the sex and the nights spent walking the stone streets, I was ready to move here, ready to throw away everything for the chance to just stay here with you.

But I knew we had to go home.

On our last night, you sat across from me in the restaurant that had quickly become our favorite. We both had creme brulee in front of us, but neither one of us was eating. Every second that ticked away was one second closer to getting on our flight, to going home, to going back to real life.

"Can we just stay here forever?" I asked, looking down at the table. I knew that if I looked at you, I would probably start to cry. But I felt the tears form anyway when you snaked your hand across the table to find mine. Your fingers laced in between mine and squeezed hard.

"We can still have this back in Connecticut."

I snort laughed. "Are you kidding? Connecticut, where we live an hour apart and can't tell anyone we're together? How could that be anything like this?"

Your thumb brushed across mine, and I could feel that you were trying to get my attention. I looked up and met your eye.

"I've been thinking," you said, and the way you said it, the way you sounded so proud, so optimistic, it made me yearn, deep in my stomach, for whatever it was you were thinking about. "I've been looking at apartments in New Haven."

I just stared at you. It felt like you'd spoken in another language. "What?" I stammered. "You want to move to New Haven?"

One side of your mouth quirked up. "Of course I do. I could easily work with one of the hospitals there, and we could get an apartment, and now that your first year is up, you won't have to live on campus anymore. We could find a place as close to campus as we can for us to live--"

"For both of us?" I squeaked. That part of it hadn't even crossed my mind. It hadn't even occurred to me that if you got an apartment in New Haven, that you would want me to live in it with you.

You smiled big that time. "Of course. If I'm moving all the way to New Haven, I fully expect to have you lying beside me in bed every night."

It was all I could do to contain myself. I wanted to leap across the table to you, to kiss you and tell you I loved you, and beg you to take me back to our hotel, away from all these people.

Instead, I just nodded feeling my eyes starting to go teary. "I love you," I said because I wasn't sure what else to say.

You smiled and took your hand from mine. "Eat your creme brulee."