I turned a degree every second, like a ticking clock, until I faced him—that gleam in his eyes.
“I love you today.” He shrugged a shoulder. “And I’m going to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow.”
I had so many questions. Did he have sex with Angie in Costa Rica? That was my biggest question, or so I thought. But as I inched my feet in his direction, I realized it didn’t matter. If I wanted to cross that threshold back into his life, it couldn’t matter. If I accepted his love and gave it freely back in return, there were Biblical rules about love I’d have to follow.
It was never jealous or demanded its own way.
It wasn’t irritable.
It didn’t keep record of being wronged.
Love never gave up.
Never lost faith.
Love was always hopeful.
And it endured through every circumstance.
However, before I could take that final step back to him, there was a question he had to answer.
“Were you ever going to come for me?”
Fisher smiled that glorious, unmatchable grin, and it instantly sent a new round of burning tears to my eyes. It blew my heart up like a balloon, and it rattled my stomach, sending those familiar, tiny wings aflutter. “I was thinking about it.”
“I found my lost fisherman,” I whispered as I took that final step and wrapped my arms around him, our lips reuniting after too long apart.
When we pulled back an inch and gazed at each other, he grinned again. “I told you, all you needed to do was go knock on his door.” He wiped his thumbs along my cheeks. “Don’t cry. I don’t want Shane to think I made my girl sad.”
“You remember.”
He grinned. “I remember. I just had no idea the memories of us would be so … NSFW. And when it happened, when I remembered the feeling, it felt indescribable, in some way like the universe was laughing at me. How could I have not known? Not like my brain forming the memory, more like my soul tapping on my heart and saying, ‘Yo, dumb ass, remember her? We love her. ‘We will always love her.’”
I rested my forehead against his chest and laughed. “Not safe for work …”
“No joke.” He took my hand and led me back toward his house. “You know, I can’t play pool anymore without getting an erection. Do you have any idea how awkward that is when you’re playing against a dude?”
I giggled.
When we reached the basement, Fisher released my hand and grabbed a beer. “Shane, this is Reese. Sorry we disappeared. She’s a little skittish.”
I narrowed my eyes at Fisher.
“Nice to finally meet you. This guy hasn’t shut up about you in days. After two beers, everything turns into Reese-this and Reese-that.” Shane sipped his beer in one hand while resting his other hand on the pool stick.
“That’s not true.” Fisher rolled his eyes while opening his beer bottle.
My scowl turned into a smirk. I felt ten feet tall, even if he was doing all this thinking and talking about me while I was miserable assuming he no longer wanted to be with me.
When I turned back toward Shane, Fisher stood behind me, snaking his hand possessively across the top of my chest as he ducked his head and whispered in my ear. “It only takes one beer for me to talk about you. But I think about you all the time. And sometimes…” his whisper got even softer “…I touch myself.” He playfully teased my ear with his teeth eliciting another giggle from me.
“Who’s playing?” Shane asked.
“Reese. She’s freakishly good at whatever she does. She kicked Arnie’s ass in ping-pong.”
I glanced back at Fisher, and he winked at me.
Over the next two hours, we played pool. Shane told me all about Fisher’s shenanigans in high school. And Fisher called Shane out on a few of his own. I had to resort to college stories, which were much more recent because I went to a Christian academy and therefore had no exciting stories during that time in my life. The most taboo thing I had ever done was pull Fisher’s towel from his waist and give him head in his closet, but Fisher already knew that, and Shane didn’t need to know it.
“I have to get home.” I glanced at my phone screen. “Rory and Rose were shopping, but now they’re home and looking for me. We’re making cookies.” I returned my pool stick to the rack. “Nice meeting you, Shane. I hope we get to hang out again before you leave.”
“Yeah, that would be great.” He plopped down onto the sectional and turned on the TV.
“I’ll walk you upstairs.” Fisher took my hand and led me to the front door. Always … always me following Fisher off a cliff or to the ends of the earth.
“I have a million questions.” I trapped my lower lip between my teeth and wrinkled my nose.