Page 84 of Eight Weeks
Well, seeing Sofia is my favorite sight, but that smile… it’s getting damn close to my favorite.
We move to no sound other than our breathing and the sound of bare feet on kitchen tiles. The only other sound is the beating of my heart, beating in a rhythm that I am praying is the same as Sofia’s. She can’t hear my heart beating, and neither can I, but I can feel it.
Never have I hoped for someone’s heart to beat in the same pace as mine, wanting the same as me, yet here I am, silently begging the universe to never take my Sofia away from me ever again.
I’m not sure when I started to need her in my life, but I finally realize that I do. I need her to breathe, to feel happy and complete.
Both our eyes fall to my wrist as I hold her. I’m still wearing her wisteria-colored ribbon around it every single day, and I do not plan on ever taking it off. Ever since I took it from her, I’ve been wearing it without having had it off, with only a few exceptions. I do not wear it for hockey, for multiple reasons. For one, and probably the most important one, I am not evenallowedto wear any kind of bracelets, rings, or necklaces during practice or games. Other than that, I only take it off to work out as I don’t want it to get all sweaty and disgusting.
“Aaron?” she says quietly, looking up at me through her lashes. Her voice is the most beautiful one I have ever heard, and hearing her say my name never fails to make my heart skip a beat or two.
“Sofia?” I push a strand of hair that fell into her face back behind her ear.
“Can you promise me something?”
“Unless you want me to leave you and move on, yes.” I doubt I could, even if I tried to. Leaving her and moving on? No, it’s impossible.
“If we do somehow manage to make your promise become reality, promise me not to say, ‘I love you’ for the first time on my birthday.”
We stop moving, but despite the little anxiety and shock in my bones, I still reach my hands up to her face, cupping it. “Why not?”
“Because I would never be able to celebrate one happy birthday again if we broke up. It would be ruined for all of eternity, haunting me. It would remind me that there was a time when you loved me, and we were together. You would have made a special day in my life more special and then took the magic away without leaving crumbs.”
I kiss her, gently, deeply, like this is the last time I’d ever get to kiss her. As we part, the words, “I promise” leave me in a whisper. With the kiss that follows, I also promise her not to say these words for the first time onanyday that is supposed to be special to her. Like Easter, Christmas, or any other holiday that exists. Though, it wouldn’t make a difference because when I say those words, they’ll be forever, and there will never be a way back from them.
46
Sofia
“hold your hair in deep devotion”—I Wanna Be Yours by Arctic Monkey
“Close your eyes, love,”Aaron says, as he washes off his hands from my shampoo, then takes the showerhead in his hand. “I don’t want you to get shampoo into your eyes.”
I close my eyes but am kind enough to let him know they’re closed. Even if we decided to turn on the ceiling light and not just the ones around the mirror, he wouldn’t see my eyes as my back is facing him.
He brings the showerhead to my hair, having turned the water a little hotter as he knows I prefer it that way.
The second we stepped in here and I had turned the water to “boiling-hot”, so Aaron insists it was, he had me turn it colder. At least now that he is washing my hair, or rather rinsing out the shampoo he so gently massaged into it, he has turned up the temperature again.
Once my hair is washed, we’ll be good to go back into bed and catch some sleep, but I’m still kind of hoping on the shower sex I’ve been promised. To be fair, I did kind of ruin the whole mood with making him promise me not to say “I love you” on my birthday, which would be a year from now as my birthday was only a week ago.
Buuut, the boner he is sporting still lets me hope, okay? Sue me.
And not to forget, Aaron has put on the playlist he created for whenever we have sex just before we stepped into the shower. He didn’t use the CD he gifted me, but as far as I can tell, he has the same playlist on his phone.
“Stop moving so much,” he grunts, pressing a hand to the top of my head to keep it in place. “You’re the worst possible shower-buddy I have ever had.”
“Who else was there?”
“My rubber duckies and the shower gel slash shampoo bottles lined up in my shower. And yes, they’re a better audience than you are.”
“No other woman?”Why, Sofia? WHY?
He snorts. “Nah. I am not giving free shows of my dick to anyone.”
“Yet here you are giving me a free show.”
Aaron turns me around, holding the showerhead right into my face. I almost choke on the water but am lucky enough not to actually inhale it.
