Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“What songs you got?” Matt asked, turning a dial and moving the list of songs underneath the glass display.
“Mostly rock and rock-inspired stuff from the ’90s. There’s some Jackson 5 in there, too. Obviously you already know ‘I Want You Back’ is my favorite song.”
Before I even finished my sentence, Matt had started to play the song. He turned to me with an almost childlike grin on his face.
I Want You Back… how fitting.
“Come on,” he said, holding out his hand. “Let’s have a dance break.”
A dance break in the middle of a torrential storm. Not an actual storm—that cleared up an hour or so ago—but a mental one, made stronger by the image of me, Matt, and Harry sitting together at Juno Pine’s, completely unaware of the killer in our midst. It felt wrong to be doing anything but working on the case, and yet, I couldn’t turn down Matt’s smile, not even if the world were crashing down all around me.
I’d still take Matt’s hand for a dance.
He pulled me against him and started to lead, moving around my living room completely off beat, shifting between a waltz and a salsa. He wasn’t a professional dancer, but I didn’t give a single fuck (even though I wanted to give multiple fucks). It was fun just being around him, moving with him, pressing against him.
The song changed, the opening of “Cherry Bomb” by the Runaways filling the room.
Matt kept dancing, his beat still off but something else changing between us; his cock was hard and pressed against me. He wasn’t shy about it at all, continuing to move around, his hips gently grinding his length against mine.
I looked into his eyes, seeing a lifetime of love and passion and yearning reflected back at me. Before I could even think about what I was doing, I kissed him. Hard. Claiming him with my mouth, letting him know how much this moment meant to me. I grabbed his hips and pulled him even closer, making sure he could feel how hard I was, matching him.
The kiss stopped, and our dancing slowed. He didn’t let go of me, though.
“I don’t care anymore.” The words tumbled out of me like an avalanche, an uncontrollable force of nature. “I ruined what we had once already, and I don’t ever want to do that shit again. I’m done running away from you, Matt. I can’t keep thinking about other people’s feelings, not when mine are so fucking strong for you. I’ve always felt this way, and I don’t want to push it down anymore. I want to embrace it. I want to be with you, Matt. Officially. I want you to be mine. I’ve always wanted you to be mine.”
“Jace—”
I continued, the avalanche of words threatening to bury me. “I lied earlier. When you asked me if I have any regrets and I said no… that wasn’t true. My biggest regret in this life is pushing you away. I lived with that regret for so long, denying it even existed. I tried to protect my brother, but all I did was hurt us instead. I can’t go through that again, Matt. I don’t ever want to let you go, and I’m sorry for—for everything.”
And suddenly the years of “what-ifs” and “if-onlys” caught up to me, manifesting in tears that slid down my cheeks, surprising me.
Matt wiped them away with a gentle touch. His gaze locked on mine, his eyebrows slanting with concern. “Jace, you don’t need to apologize to me. I understand why you did what you did. I’m a big believer in things happening as they should, and I think that needed to happen. We’ve been apart, we know how terrible that feels, so now we can truly savor every second we spend together.” He kissed me, then kissed my cheeks, his lips brushing against my tear-streaked skin. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ll always have you.”
His words rang true and settled somewhere deep inside me, the sadness that had taken root in my chest slowly starting to wither away.
He kissed me again, and again, and again.
“What about Harry?” I asked in between one of the kisses. “We have to tell him. He’s going to be here tomorrow.”
“And we will. He’ll understand, I’m sure of it. At the end of the day, your brother wants to see us happy. Us being apart isn’t going to accomplish that, and it also wouldn’t make me develop feelings I don’t already have.”
He was right, obviously. Matt was always right. My lips went back to his, my eyes fluttering shut as I drifted off into the ocean of us. I didn’t care if I never saw land again. All that mattered was Matt and me, bodies and hearts together. This was what I always wanted. This was a true and honest second chance, and I was determined not to mess it up.