ELEVEN YEARS OF US

Eleven years

Chapter Two:

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‎"Four days," Jonah said again, like saying it twice might change the number. "I'm leaving in four days."

‎"I know."

‎"That's a genuinely terrible time for this."

‎"I know that too." Maya's hands were shaking, she realized — not from fear, not really, but from the sheer physics of holding something in for eleven years and then setting it down all at once. "I've known for years and I never said anything because I didn't want to lose you as a friend, and now you're leaving anyway, and it felt like I was going to lose you either way, so I figured I might as well lose you honestly."

‎"You're not going to lose me." His voice had gone rough. "Maya, look at me. You are not going to lose me. Not like this. Not ever, if I have any say in it."

‎"You don't know that."

‎"I do, actually." And then he was moving — closing the distance between them on his knees, one hand coming up to cup her jaw like he'd done it a thousand times before, though he never had, not once, in eleven years of hugs that lasted exactly as long as friendship allowed and never a second longer. "I don't care that it's a terrible time. I've been waiting for the right time since I was twenty-three years old and there hasn't been one yet, so I'm done waiting for it."

‎"Jonah—"

‎He kissed her.

‎It wasn't tentative. It was eleven years distilled into a single motion — his hand sliding into her hair, the other finding the small of her back and pulling her in like he needed her closer than physically possible. She made a small sound against his mouth, something between surprise and relief, and kissed him back just as hard, her fingers curling into the front of his shirt like she needed something to hold onto or she might come apart entirely.

‎He tasted like the coffee he'd been drinking all afternoon, and underneath that, something that was just him — familiar in a way that made her head spin, because she knew this man. She knew the sound of his laugh and the way he took his eggs and what he looked like heartbroken over his last relationship and what he looked like was genuinely happy, lit up, laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. None of that had prepared her for what he felt like this — pressed against her, one hand gripping her hip like he was trying to memorize the shape of her before he lost the chance.

‎"Eleven years," she breathed, when he finally pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead against hers, both of them breathing like they'd run somewhere. "Eleven years of pretending I didn't want this."

‎"I noticed everything," he said, voice low and rough in a register she'd never heard from him before. "Every single thing. The way you bite your lip when you're nervous. The way you laugh at your own jokes before you finish telling them. The way you always order for me at restaurants because you remember what I like better than I do. I noticed all of it and I told myself none of it meant anything."

‎"Liar."

‎"Complete liar." He laughed, short and disbelieving, like the word tasted strange after so many years of denying it even to himself. "I used to leave your apartment and just sit in my car for ten minutes before I could drive, because I needed that long to talk myself back down."

‎"You never said."

‎"Neither did you."

‎"I'm saying it now."

‎He kissed her again, slower this time, deliberate, like now that the dam had broken he had all the time in the world instead of four days. His hands slid under the hem of her shirt, palms warm against her waist, thumbs tracing slow, absent circles against her skin that made her breath catch somewhere high in her chest.

‎"Jonah—"

‎"Tell me to stop," he murmured against her jaw, dropping open-mouthed kisses along the line of her throat that made her fingers dig into his shoulders, "and I will. Say the word and I'll stop right now."

‎"Don't you dare stop."

‎He made a sound low in his throat that she felt more than heard — something between relief and disbelief, like he'd braced himself for rejection even after everything he'd just said — and then his mouth was back on hers, hungrier now, less careful. She was walking backward without quite deciding to, until her shoulder blades met the wall between two stacked moving boxes, his hands framing her face like she was something he couldn't quite believe was real and solid and actually here.