[ Stay. Love her. Try not to fuck it up this time.
For a moment, he only looks up at her. There, on his knees, her fingers hooked back into the chain he wears like a collar and a promise and an oath. The golden spike of his lashes jumps, and Jake exhales, long and low and heavy. Expression unreadable, neutral, far away. He thinks back to that first glimpse of sun and cloud when he'd gotten out, a paper bag of all his old shit tucked under one arm, a hand cupped over his eyes as he'd blinked into wide open space. How blinding it had felt. How the impossible reach of his own ambition had clawed, violent and hopeful and heavy, right back into his skull. How the sky was the fucking limit, baby.
I never stopped, he wants to say. I never knew how to stop. I'll keep showing you that, as long as you let me.
Without agenda or motive, Jake smiles at her. An open, tender thing that hasn't seen daylight since she left. The press of his dimple against the turn of her knuckle. The words — better ones, more honest, more true than that first glimpse of sun — crawl up and up, touching the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth curves, the way his palms gently run up from her knees to her thighs. He says, simply: ]
I do.
[ Jake rises up on his knees. He leans into her, angling. He breathes in her exhales and lets himself, for now, for as long as he's here, be buoyed by the feeling. ]
I also hear, [ he says, slowly, faux-thoughtfully, ] that he's hung like a horse.
[ The skip of his fingers against her hair. The push and tuck of it as he cards it, a motion so immeasurably private and small, out of her eyes. Jake loves her. Her bitter edges, the way she moves in the dark; how there is a meanness in her body that kept her alive. It isn't doubt but honesty that makes his gaze drop, his head tip. He stops, for once, edging in all his tells: ]
You think we're going to get it right this time?
[ You think we're going to hurt each other all over again? ]
no subject
For a moment, he only looks up at her. There, on his knees, her fingers hooked back into the chain he wears like a collar and a promise and an oath. The golden spike of his lashes jumps, and Jake exhales, long and low and heavy. Expression unreadable, neutral, far away. He thinks back to that first glimpse of sun and cloud when he'd gotten out, a paper bag of all his old shit tucked under one arm, a hand cupped over his eyes as he'd blinked into wide open space. How blinding it had felt. How the impossible reach of his own ambition had clawed, violent and hopeful and heavy, right back into his skull. How the sky was the fucking limit, baby.
I never stopped, he wants to say. I never knew how to stop. I'll keep showing you that, as long as you let me.
Without agenda or motive, Jake smiles at her. An open, tender thing that hasn't seen daylight since she left. The press of his dimple against the turn of her knuckle. The words — better ones, more honest, more true than that first glimpse of sun — crawl up and up, touching the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth curves, the way his palms gently run up from her knees to her thighs. He says, simply: ]
I do.
[ Jake rises up on his knees. He leans into her, angling. He breathes in her exhales and lets himself, for now, for as long as he's here, be buoyed by the feeling. ]
I also hear, [ he says, slowly, faux-thoughtfully, ] that he's hung like a horse.
[ The skip of his fingers against her hair. The push and tuck of it as he cards it, a motion so immeasurably private and small, out of her eyes. Jake loves her. Her bitter edges, the way she moves in the dark; how there is a meanness in her body that kept her alive. It isn't doubt but honesty that makes his gaze drop, his head tip. He stops, for once, edging in all his tells: ]
You think we're going to get it right this time?
[ You think we're going to hurt each other all over again? ]