Slowly, I peeled the blanket from my body and slid my feet into my slippers. It was hot and humid, and I wore nothing but a white satin chemise.
I skated to the hallway, then rapped on Ethan’s door. A gruff sound came from behind it. “Come in.”
I stepped inside. The room was bathed in darkness. The outline of his body under the covers moved as he rearranged his frame, sitting up.
“Are you up?” I whispered.
“Yeah. You too, huh?”
I nodded. “Can we talk?”
“It’s been long overdue, don’t you think?”
I sat on the edge of his bed, twisting my fingers together in my lap. His head was pressed against the headboard. I felt his gaze on my silhouette. Thank God we were in the dark.
“Ethan, I—”
“I know.” He cut me off, rubbing at his forehead. “Just . . . don’t. Don’t finish that sentence. I think I always knew. You were never really mine. I learned to accept that to a certain degree. I continued my steady hookup with Natalie, thinking if I kept my heart out of the race, maybe it would stay at arm’s length. I thought it was a matter of time before Chase would screw it all up again and you’d come running back to my open arms. I kept waiting for you to step back from the Black fog, but he just kept sucking you in. The truth is, Maddie, it’s not just that we’re over. We’ve never really begun.”
“I wanted us to be a thing,” I said. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, falling on the bare skin of my thighs. I didn’t know why I was so upset. “You’re perfect, Ethan.”
“Please don’t say that. It’s what all my girlfriends said in high school.” He sighed tiredly. “Perfect is boring.”
I shook my head, pressing my knuckles to the sides of my eyes, drying the tears. “No, it’s not. But perfect and broken do not coexist. Broken needs another broken to become whole. I have more issues than Vogue. I never really got over my mother’s death, and . . . and . . . I have this compulsive need to please everybody. Which is why we’re both here having this conversation.” I motioned around us with a wave of a hand.
He laughed, sitting up fully now to be next to me. Thigh to thigh. “I’ve a feeling Chase is the definition of broken.” Ethan sighed. “You’re a good match.”
I smiled sadly. “Lucky me, huh?”
“Unlucky me,” Ethan countered. I swatted his arm. He was grinning in the dark. The atmosphere was shifting into something lighter. I wanted to keep it that way.
“Hey, can I ask you a question? Kind of personal, but I always wanted to know and will never get to find out.” I nudged his knee with mine.
“Lay it on me.”
“What’s your favorite position?” I scrunched my nose. “Like . . . sexually.”
“Missionary,” he said. “Definitely missionary.”
I smiled. Damn you, Chase. The arrogant jerk never got it wrong.
Ethan tucked his hands between his legs, nudging me with one of them. “Hey, do you think things would be different if he wasn’t still in the picture?”
I mulled his question over for a few seconds. Honesty was the least I could give Ethan after everything we’d been through in our short, unconsummated relationship.
“No,” I said finally. “You’re a fully formed person, and I . . . I don’t think I ever will be. I think there’s a part of me still floating in the universe, searching for my mother.” I stopped, frowning as I realized something. “Maybe that’s why I’ve always been so obsessed with weddings. I’ve been hoping to find that something in someone else. Subconsciously. But I need to find it in myself.”
“For what it’s worth”—his lips found my temple, hovering over it as he spoke—“you are the best half person I’ve ever met, Maddie Goldbloom. Imperfections and all.”
By the time I left Ethan’s bedroom, dawn was breaking over the horizon. The dark morphed from velvet into powder blue through the high windows. I stumbled out to the hallway, heading for the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mind was still buzzing with the realization I needed to find my missing piece in myself.
I was almost at the end of the hallway when Chase came out of his room. He wore gray sweatpants and those Kanye West–type sneakers that looked like expensive spaceships. He was bare chested and ready for an outside jog. His hair was a mess, his eyes bloodshot, though I was getting used to Exhausted Chase. It was somehow even sexier than Regular Chase.
Our gazes tangled in the unlit hallway.
His eyes dragged to Ethan’s door, then back to mine. He popped an eyebrow in question. I shook my head. A barely visible gesture.
Nothing happened.
He caught it. His throat bobbed. A bubble of excitement swelled in my chest.