Page 127 of 10 Rings I Hate About You
He didn’t say anything else as he withdrew and leaned back against the couch. And for the first time in a long time acknowledging my feelings and thoughts didn’t seem so dangerous.
“Movie?” he asked.
I grabbed the remote before he could suggest anything with subtitles.
“I’m picking,” I announced.
“I wasn’t going to stop you.”
“You were going to suggest something meaningful with subtitles.” I turned away from him so I could settle back against his chest.
He didn’t deny it.
Chaos, apparently satisfied with his inspection of the dog bed, turned in a circle three times and dropped onto it with the gravity of a much larger animal. He arranged his legs. He sighed. And within two minutes, he was fast asleep, one ear twitching occasionally at sounds only he could hear, his small chest rising and falling with absurd peacefulness.
Marc watched him for a moment. “He never does that. I think your presence calms him.”
“Maybe. He’s really cute like that.” I looked away, not wanting to call too much attention to how good the goat was being. Afraid that if I did, he’d sense it and decide to do something off-the-wall just because.
I found a rom-com I’d seen probably four times, but was still a favorite. A comfort watch, low stakes, and the type of movie you put on when you want the company of it without having to actually pay attention.
The title sequence flashed across the screen and Marc shifted me, settling in behind me so I was between his legs with my back to his chest and his arms loose around me. It happened without either of us narrating it. One moment, there was space, and then there wasn’t, and neither of us felt the need to comment on that.
It was everything and nothing all at once.
Onscreen, the lead actress was washing dishes in a warm, cluttered kitchen—the kind with a drawer that didn’t close all the way and too many things on the counter and a whole life accumulated in the corners.
“My aunt’s kitchen’s like that,” I said the second it popped into my head. “Well, really it’s my kitchen now, but it just felt different when she was alive, more like it does in the movie.”
Marc’s arms tightened slightly. Not enough to make it a thing. Just enough for me to notice.
“She had this dish soap she ordered from some apothecary shop online. She loved it.” I watched the screen without really watching it. “After she died, I spent three days obsessively going through her browser history trying to track it down.”
“Did you find it?”
“No.” I sighed. “I don’t even know what I would’ve done with it if I found it. I didn’t particularly like the scent.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t try to fix it. His thumb rubbed against my arm, and that small pressure landed in me, easing the tightness that had begun forming in my chest.
The movie played on. Chaos snored. Outside, the sun lowered and the bright sky took on a rosy hue.
With every second that passed, I realized that this, right here, with Marc, was something I could look forward to doing. And that was exciting just as much as it was scary. We’d been hating on each other not that long ago, and suddenly things felt right in a way our old behavior never did.
By the third act, I’d stopped watching entirely.
I was aware of the darkness settling in, the warmth of Marc at my back, and that particular quality of silence that had grown between us over the last hour and a half. The easy kind. One you don’t have to manage.
“I don’t really know how to do this,” I finally said.
It came out quietly. Not quite an accident, but not a decision I’d consciously made—something in between, the kind of thing that happens when you’ve been held gently for long enough that your edges start to go soft and hope has gotten a foothold in your heart.
“This?” He repeated.
“Any of it.”
He stilled behind me.
“You. This. Whatever this is.” My laughter came out small and rueful. I was still raw over the thoughts of my aunt, and tonight had been perfect so far. So why was I pushing this? It was far too soon to label what we were to each other, and I didn’t even know what I was looking for from him. “You don’t have to answer that. I’m usually not so needy.”
