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Mildly annoyed, I turned to him and said, “Listen here, buddy This is important We need to do this” And just because I could, I rolled my eyes and repeated what he said to me only minutes before “We can play schoolyard sexy-time e’re off the clock” A slow smile stretched his lips, and my stomach flip-flopped at how beautiful it was I couldn’t deal Taking my hands, I put them to either side of his face and forcefully turned his head,him watch the screen “Focus”

He did, but he did it grinning And when his ar my head on his

Soft words from a hardened man

“I love you”

It socked ut each time I heard it out loud

My eyes burned The bridge of ht over his heart, and nestled into his side, he turned his head and pressed his lips to my temple in an open display of reverence

Content heart

It was a strange feeling to live in the knowledge that I had the kind of love I always craved The easy, comfortable kind where kisses were frequent and there was no shahter was plentiful and argu Where we craved each other on a level that bordered manic

We weren’t perfect, and that was okay

Perfect, I found, was synony

My fas could always be fixed

Yes, the fissures would always be visible, but when the right person loved you enough to shift your focus, you quickly realized that those cracks foreh

Life was good

No It was great

I didn’t think it could get better than this but would gladly be proved wrong, again and again and again, over the course of our hectic lives

39

Nastasia

Vik was pacing It should have annoyed ave him a pass

Fro his eyes closed, then opening them only to lose focus, anyone could see he was stressed out

All the ti Days filled with anxiety, norhts Thousands of ideas Hundreds of hours of research