Winter Jacket: Finding Home (37 page)

“That’s what I did though. That’s where I am right now. I told you when we were in that closet—”

“I was afraid,” she cut me off. “I knew I wanted to have you back in my life, but I couldn’t do that if I was just waiting for you to leave me again when you were feeling restless.”

“If it meant giving you up, it wouldn’t be worth it. I know that now.”

“I don’t want you to resent me—to see me as the reason why you didn’t do something bigger and better than teaching. Why you didn’t become rich and famous.”

“There’s still time for that,” I gently smiled. “But if that ever became an option again, I’d want us to make that decision together. I know you said it was for the best that I made you stay in Minnesota, but I was wrong to ever make that decision for you. You tell me all the time that you want a partnership. I thought at the time I knew what was best for you and me, but it wasn’t the best decision for
us.
”

“Damn it. How do you always know exactly what I need to hear?” She grabbed the front of my shirt and tugged me close until our mouths were only a breath’s length away.

“I think-I think this is against the rules,” I stuttered.

Her fingers remained curled around the neckline of my t-shirt. “We’ve never been very good at following rules, you and me.”

Hunter slammed her mouth against my lips, and I had no choice but to lose myself to the urgency of her crushing embrace and the light touch that toyed over my shirt. I felt her nails carve a path directly to my shoulders and rake down my back. When her eager hands slid up the front of my top, hot fingers burning my flesh, I grabbed onto her wrists and pulled away.

Everything was moving too fast. I closed my eyes and shook my head.  The room spun from her scent and desperate kisses.

“I don’t care what the rules are. This feels right,” Hunter proclaimed. “We didn’t break up because we fell out of love. We broke up because I wasn’t mature enough to handle a long distance relationship.”

Before I could object, she continued: “I’ve been selfish. I encouraged you to pursue your writing opportunity, and then when the distance got too hard, I quit on us.”

“I don’t blame you for any of that,” I protested. “It’s never been easy for us. In fact, I’ve wondered these past few months if maybe the universe was trying to tell us something.”

“Like we’re not supposed to be together?”

I shrugged. It would have hurt too much to say the words or to acknowledge hers. “I don’t know; isn’t there some saying about how the only things worth having or doing are the things that challenge us?” I said instead.

Her lips quirked up in a small smile. “If not, there should be.”

My phone rang with Troian’s distinctive ring tone. I fished my phone out of my back pocket and silenced its jarring tone. “Sorry,” I apologized. “Troian said she’d call after the episode.”

“Oh. You can answer if you have to.”

“She’ll be fine. It’s not the first time I’ve ignored one of her calls and it certainly won’t be the last.”

“I miss you.”

“Hunter, I—.”

My phone buzzed to life again with a second call from Troian, and I immediately sent it to voicemail.

“Sorry about that,” I apologized again. “Where were we?”

A small smile played on her kissable mouth. She was so god damn beautiful. I would never get tired of looking at her. “I was just telling you that I missed you.”

“I miss you, too.”

As if on cue, my phone began to ring again. I stared at the device, annoyed, but unsure if I should answer the call or let it go to voicemail.

“Why don’t you answer that,” she suggested. “I’m guessing she’s not going to stop calling.”

“This shouldn’t take long,” I promised, “and we can talk more after I get off the phone.”

Her long eyelashes fluttered. “Do you really want to talk?”

“No,” I admitted.

She kissed me again. I couldn’t control my body’s reaction this time, and I moaned throatily into her mouth. I tightened my hands on her hips, and Troian’s call went unanswered again.

She slipped her tongue slipped between my lips and caressed my tongue with her own. She stroked along the top of my bottom teeth before sucking my lower lip into her mouth. She gently nibbled at the captive lip, playfully gliding her tongue against the brim between each delicate bite.

As the kiss deepened, her fingers entwined themselves in my hair. She tugged, balling one hand into a fist, while her other hand journeyed its way down my shirt to simply clutch onto my lower abs.

I pushed her back against the banister. Pinned between our bodies, my phone jangled to life again, surprising us both. This time I didn’t send the call to voicemail. “Hello,” I bit out in an exasperated voice that Troian didn’t deserve. She had no way to know that she’d been interrupting something.

“Why are you ignoring my calls?” Troian pouted. “Don’t tell me you fell asleep. You’re not that old yet.”

“Hunter came over,” I said, licking my lips and tasting her on them. “She saw tonight’s episode.”

“Ohhh.”

I cleared my throat.

“She’s still there, isn’t she?” Troian asked.

“Yup.”

My eyebrows shot up to my hairline as I watched Hunter leave my side and begin to climb up the staircase towards the second floor. If she was headed for my bedroom, we’d never actually have that talk.

Troian was silent for a moment, clearly weighing this new information. “Good for you,” she decided on.

“As long as she doesn’t have some kind of gay panic in the morning.” I had been wrong about her intentions before, like the morning after Troi and Nik’s wedding, but it felt different this time.

“Ya’ll need a good slap in the head is what you need,” Troian pronounced. “Both of you. Too stubborn and too proud to let yourselves be happy.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I always am,” she quipped.

“Why didn’t you tell me you and Nik donated money to the campus green initiative?”

“It was only a few thousand dollars,” Troian dismissed. “Tax write-off. Why?”

“Hunter was at the construction of the community garden.”

“She was?”

I arched an eyebrow even though she couldn’t see me. “So you expect me to believe that you had nothing to do with that coincidence? You didn’t tell Jessica to make me go because you knew Hunter would be there?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything. But I didn’t do anything except front the money for some top soil.” Normally Troian would never miss an opportunity to brag about her cleverness and deception, so I had no choice but to believe her.

I worried my bottom lip. “I think she got jealous about Jessica.”

“Hell, even
I’m
jealous about Jessica,” Troian noted. “I didn’t know I was so replaceable, Bookie.”

“You’re ridiculous. And also irreplaceable.”

“Good. I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”

Troian and I cut our call short with a promise that I’d contact her the next day. Apparently she had been serious about wanting notes on the episode.

I left my phone downstairs to be sure we wouldn’t be interrupted again and climbed up the staircase, one hand firm on the banister. I didn’t want my steps to sound too rushed or too eager despite how my heart thumped at the realization of who awaited me in my bedroom.

Upstairs, my room was blanketed in darkness except for the light emitted, appropriately, by the pale moon outside. The power still hadn’t come back on in my house or elsewhere in the neighborhood.

As I padded closer to my bed, I spied two figures on the mattress. Hunter was on top of the covers, and Sylvia was curled on the pillow beside her head. The cat was lightly snoring, and Hunter’s chest swelled and fell with each inhalation and exhale. They were both asleep.

I pulled an afghan out of the cedar trunk at the end of my bed and gingerly placed it over her body, careful not to wake either of them.

When I slipped into bed, Hunter rolled over, still asleep. Her fingers curled around the waistband of my yoga pants as she’d done so many times before. I was sure there would be more conversations and over-analysis of what any of this meant in the morning, but for now, I lay on my back and smiled at the ceiling.

After months of trying to figure out who I was supposed to be and where it was that I belonged, I was finally home.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eliza Lentzski is the author of lesbian fiction, romance, and erotica including
Fragmented
,
Don’t Call Me Hero
,
Winter Jacket 2: New Beginnings
,
Apophis: A Love Story for the End of the World
,
Winter Jacket
,
Second Chances
,
Date Night
,
Diary of a Human
,
Love, Lust, & Other Mistakes
, and the forthcoming
Bittersweet Homecoming
(Fall 2015). She also publishes urban fantasy and paranormal romance under the penname E.L. Blaisdell. Although a historian by day, Eliza is passionate about fiction. She calls the Midwest her home along with her partner and their cat and turtle. 

Follow her on Twitter, @ElizaLentzski, and Like her on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/elizalentzski) for updates and exclusive previews of future original releases.

http://www.elizalentzski.com