Demanding Ransom

Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

Finals Week — June



Voices follow the shuffling footsteps down the hall. The bars must be officially closed for the night. That would explain the sudden influx of students and the buzz of noise at nearly three in the morning. And it sounds like the drinking and partying have picked up where they left off in the student lounge at the other end of the dormitory.

I roll onto my side and tuck my hands under my pillow. Cora’s bed is empty and I’m wide-awake, half anticipating her to burst through the doors with another random guy attached to her lips. I hope that’s not the case because I can’t take up my usual roost in the loveseat in the lounge tonight. I really need a good night’s sleep in my own bed. The past three were all-nighters, and I’m praying my grades reflect that just as much as the purple bags under my eyes do.

I try to keep my eyes closed, but it doesn’t work. Papers and finals flash behind my lids, and when those disappear, they’re replaced with the nervous anxiety that’s held tight in my chest, manifesting itself in the hazy images of Mikey’s doctor, charts, and CT scans.

I finished my last final this morning, and while the rest of the school impatiently awaits their final grades, I’m holding my breath, dreading a totally different result: the results of Mikey’s most recent scans. He completed his doctor’s initial treatment plan two weeks ago, and it’s been a waiting game ever since.

I honestly think there’s nothing I hate more than this state of not knowing. Limbo. It sucks. I wonder if it’s possible for limbo to become a permanent place, rather than just a temporary holding cell. Because I feel like I’ve been locked in it forever. At least for the last decade. Ten years of waiting for my life to move out of this indeterminate state. Waiting to finally experience those inalienable rights Ran talked about. Being happy. Finding love. I was so close. I was almost out of my purgatory. My waiting game was almost over.

My eyes meet the clock. 3:15 a.m. If I fall asleep now, I can still get four hours of sleep before my alarm jolts me awake. That’s not terrible. The boxes are already stacked high in the corner of the room like a cardboard Christmas tree. All that’s left out is my laptop, my clock, and a few things from my makeup bag. I’ll strip the bed, fold my comforter into the last empty box, and there will be no trace left hinting at the fact that I inhabited this dorm room for the past nine months. It will belong to someone else just after summer break, and it will be as though my year in room 504 in Hawthorne Hall never happened.

I’ve almost surrendered to the loose promise of sleep when I hear a faint knock on my door, so quiet that at first I think I’m imagining it. Several seconds pass and I strain to hear, squinting my eyes in the dark, which really makes no sense. Like when you turn down the radio when you’re trying to find a place while driving. But for some reason I think it helps, and when I hear the echo through the wood the second time, I leap out of bed and rush toward the sound.

“Hey Maggie.” There’s a blast of alcohol that greets me along with the voice.

“Brian,” I gawk, stepping back to avoid his staggering body that careens toward me.

He grabs me around the waist. “We made it, Mags,” he croons in my ear.

I shove him off. “Made what?”

His eyes are dilated and his lips form sloppily around his muddled words. “Made it through freshman year.”

“Just barely.” I push him onto Cora’s bed and sit down on my own. In this small room, this is about as far away as we can get from each other.

“You heading home for the summer?” He slides down and closes his eyes, tucking his legs up under him like he’s in the fetal position. Oh no. This is not going to work. Brian is not going to fall asleep here in my dorm. This is not how my year ends. Brian is not a part of it.

“I don’t know what my plans are,” I say, resigning to the fact that I’m going to have to physically touch Brian to get him out of the room. My skin crawls like I’m covered in thousands of fire ants. I wonder what made him think he’d be welcome here in the first place. “It all depends on Mikey’s results.”

“That sucks so bad that he has cancer,” Brian slurs against the sheets and it sounds like he has cotton in his mouth.

“Yeah.” I yank on his arm and cringe at the feel of it, hot and clammy against my palm. “Time for you to go, Brian.” I manage to pull him into a sitting position, but he teeters for a couple of seconds before swaying back over to the other side, crashing onto the foot of Cora’s bed.

“Sophia won’t have sex with me anymore.”

I didn’t see that coming. “What?”

Brian nuzzles his face against the crumpled duvet cover. I think he’s drooling. I’m never going to hear the end of this from Cora.

“She’s sleeping with Colby.” I don’t know who Colby is, nor do I care. All I really care about is getting Brian out of my room without him emptying the liquor-laced contents of his stomach all over the floor on his way out. “She’s sleeping with Colby, Maggie.”

“I’m sorry.” I’m not. I’m more sorry that I answered the door in the first place. I should know better than to respond to three o’clock in the morning wake-up calls.

“He’s my roommate. She slept with my roommate.” He belches a wet hiccup that sounds like it’s accompanying something else. He cannot throw up on Cora’s bed. Drool is one thing—she may forgive me for that. Vomit is a completely different story.

I tiptoe to the foot of the bed and prop my hand between his shoulder blades. It’s disgusting how sweaty he is. I find it impossibly hard to believe that at one point in time, Brian’s sweaty body on my bed would have turned me on. This is the polar opposite of being turned on. I’m actually a little worried that I might throw up, too.

“It sucks to be cheated on, Mags,” he groans, just at the same moment I managed to rally my strength to shove him off the bed. Brian tumbles to the concrete floor with a thud. “Uggghhh,” he moans, clutching his side.

“Yes, it does.” I wipe my hands across one another. “Brian.” I crouch down to his level and his pained eyes look up at me. “You have to go.”

Closing his eyes, he nods at least ten times, like he’s one of those bobble heads on a dashboard of a car. “Yeah.” He slumps back onto the floor.

I stand above him with my hands on my hips for a moment, trying to figure out what I’m going to do with him. It’s almost like disposing of a dead body, the list of possibilities my mind runs through. I finally decide on grasping him around the ankles and dragging him out into the hall to become someone else’s problem, when he pushes up on his elbow and stares at me, clarity flitting briefly across his face.

“I’m sorry, Maggie.” Brian gives me a soft, apologetic smile. He pushes all the way up to sit cross-legged, but continues to wobble unevenly. “I was a dick. I shouldn’t have done that to you.” He shakes his head as though he’s scolding himself. “Not after three years. Not after what I took from you.”

The sound of the party raging down the hall rattles the old windows, and Brian’s quivering voice matches it to a T.

I bend down to his level. “You didn’t take anything from me, Brian. I gave it to you.” He looks up at me expectantly. “And I forgive you… I think I actually forgave you a while back.” The light that catches Brian’s eyes reveals the relief that I think he’s been seeking for quite a while. I can see it slipping out of him and feel it breathed through him.

I don’t know when it happened exactly, when I chose to stop hating Brian for what he did to me. But it occurred somewhere along the line, and seeing him like this tonight—this hurt, confused man balled up on my floor because someone did the same to him—makes me realize what I have for him must be true forgiveness. Because even though the thought of him still disgusts me on some level, the fact that I feel bad he’s experiencing the same pain has to mean something. It feels like forgiveness—however foreign—and something in me is lighter just by giving it out.

“You should go, Brian.”

“I know.” He nods slowly. “I’m so sorry, Maggie. You didn’t do anything to deserve what I did.” He shrugs. “I guess I deserve what Sophia did, though. You know, like payment for my sins or something.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.” We’re eye level now, though Brian’s eyes shift unsteadily side to side as his body sways. “And I bet you’ll forgive her someday, too. We all make mistakes.”

“You were a good girlfriend, you know?” Brian leans forward. “I’m sorry I was such an ass to you, Maggie.”

“You weren’t always an ass, Brian. That’s not who you were. You just did things occasionally that made you seem like one.” I pull on his elbow to steer him toward the door.

He pauses before taking the handle in his grasp. “I really hope Mikey is okay.” Swiveling on his heel to face me, he says meaningfully, “You deserve some good in your life.” Before I can stop him, Brian pushes his lips to my forehead. It’s not as revolting as I envisioned it would be, and strangely, it feels appropriate. “Have a good summer, okay?”

I smile and blink up at him. “I’ll try. You too, Brian.” And then he slips out the door.

I turn to face the empty hollow of the room, replaying what just happened again in my mind. Brian hurt me. Brian got hurt. Brian apologized for hurting me. I forgave Brian. When I break it down into those four components, it seems logical, like it’s some equation on how to be human. But when I think about it deep down—think about the betrayal, the hate, and the pain that goes along with it—nothing about it feels natural. It’s not natural to forgive. It’s a choice, one that has to be intentionally made in order for it to be real. If I can forgive Brian for what he did, maybe I can extend that same forgiveness to others in my life that require it. It might not be as easy as this odd exchange, but it might be possible. The hope I thought had completely vacated from my life blooms in the tiniest crevice of my being.

Now that the room is mine again, I slink back under the covers and yank the comforter up to my chin, cocooning myself under the still-warm fabric. 3:30. If I fall asleep now, I might not be a total zombie tomorrow. More like a sleepwalker. I’ll settle for that.

Another knock at the door.

“Brian,” I say, raising my voice so he can hear me through the wooden barrier. “Go home and go to bed!”

Two more loud knocks.

Grudgingly, I plant my feet on the ground, walk toward the door again, and tug it open. I instantly gasp and heat rises in my body, flooding my senses. “Ran.” His name falls from my lips.

“Hey Maggie.” He has his black leather riding jacket on and ripped jeans slung low on his hips. A white V-neck shirt peeks out from under his collar. Only Ran could look this amazing in the dead of night and it frustrates me to no end. “Can I come in?”

I tumble backward and try to regain my footing so I don’t fall onto the floor in the heap Brian was moments earlier. The room is hot, like someone has cranked up the furnace, and I pull at my shirt to billow it, allowing air to float over my skin. Ran’s eyes follow the movements of my hands and that’s when I see it. His face can’t hide it; the way his brow lifts gives it all away. “That’s my shirt, Maggie.”

My stomach twists into a pretzel and I bind my arms across my chest, hoping to conceal the Ducati logo that’s inked across it, hoping to hide the shirt that I’d taken from him back at the cabin.

“We need to talk.” He looks over at the bed and then back at me, scanning my stolen top once more. “Is it okay if we talk?”

My head is fuzzy with confusion and I lift it up and down like a twitch. Ran paces across the room and sits down right in the middle of my bed. I decide to position myself at the head of it, and I lean my back onto the cool cinderblock wall, willing the temperature to bring down my full-body flush.

“Let me just start by saying I don’t remember anything more than what I told you the last time we talked. It seems only fair to lead off with that.” Something in me nosedives. I don’t know what it is because I’m certain it’s not hope. I don’t allow myself to hold onto hope when it comes to Ran. Maybe a glimmer of it is making itself present in the other compartments of my life, but there’s no room for it where Ran is concerned.

He keeps talking. “I don’t remember anything more. But I do know that you owe me something.”

Nerves shoot through my stomach. “I owe you something?” I’d never expected those words to drop from Ran’s mouth because in all the times I told him I felt indebted to him, he consistently reiterated the fact that I didn’t owe him a single thing. But hearing him say this now pulls at my unsettled core. The doctors—and my silly research—had been clear that Ran hadn’t lost himself, that he was the same person. He was the same soul—just with a slice of his life pulled from its place. But this statement doesn’t support that theory. Maybe something in him has changed.

“This.” He slips his hand into his pocket and when he takes it back out, a crumpled piece of paper is in it. He flicks it in front of my face between his index and third fingers. Raising his eyebrows, he gestures for me to take it. “Do you know what that is?”

I unfold the sheet. “Our list.”

“Why would we have a list, Maggie?” Ran’s eyes sliver and he shakes his head. “Why would we have this sheet of all of these bucket list things we want to do together if we were just friends?”

The room spins. It doesn’t help that the entire dorm pulsates with the hypnotizing beat of music down the hall. And it also doesn’t help that I’m going on three and a half days without sleep. For all I know I could be dreaming all of this. Betraying what little sense I have left, I stretch my hand across the bed and touch Ran’s arm, just to be sure of him.

“You know what you owe me?” Ran pulls his arm back, almost flinching. His voice is firm—not angry or upset—but demanding. Demanding an answer from me that I’m not sure I’m ready to give. “You owe me the truth.”

My chest caves. “Ran,” I sigh, “I told you the truth back at the hospital, when I thanked you for rescuing me.” I hold in a pocket of air on reserve because my lungs aren’t working the way they should. Nothing is working the way it should. It never does.

“Right, I get that you’re grateful I was at the scene of the accident—”

“That’s not it,” I interrupt. “You rescued me, Ran.” I drop my gaze and pluck at the fabric on my quilt. “In more ways than you’ll ever know.”

Desperation crosses over Ran’s features and he rakes his hands through his hair, gripping the strands between frustrated fingers. “Damn it, Maggie. Why won’t you just tell me?” he growls. “Would you please stop being so cryptic and for once just be straight with me?” The shake in his voice makes me jump out of my skin, and when his pleading eyes land on mine, I feel their impact deep in my gut. Ran clenches his jaw and sucks in air between gritted teeth. After a tense pause, he says, “Because I’ve spent the past six months without you, and honestly, that’s worse than the two months I supposedly lost.”

I don’t want to cry. It seems impossible to fall apart when you aren’t whole to begin with. And I’m definitely not whole. I haven’t been for years. I’m just scraps, and those can’t fall apart. I’m shredded. That’s what all of this has done to me, completely shredded me. Like those stupid machines that you place one sheet of paper in on one side, and retrieve the sliced-up strips on the other. Shreds that can’t be pieced back together, no matter how hard you try.

“Maggie?” Ran’s frustration still seeps out of him. “Why won’t you let me in? What did I do wrong?”

I hate that he’s sitting here in front of me, pleading, and blaming himself for how things are between us. I don’t know how much longer I can cling to my stubborn resolve. I’m acting like a mule and I’m beginning to question my decision to let him go in the first place.

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” I shake my head violently and my heart sputters in my chest. “You did everything right. Damn it, Ran. You were perfect.” I close my eyes tightly. “We were perfect.”

“What the hell?” Ran throws his hands into the air. “Then why won’t you let me in? Why do you keep denying we ever existed?”

“Because I couldn’t take the chance of it being anything less than what we had before.” I don’t look at him. I’m not brave enough and courage is not something that fills me at the moment. Anger, frustration, and defeat are the only emotions I have room for—and they’re all directed toward myself.

Ran laughs and it’s so out of place in the heat of our conversation, but it releases a portion of the tightness that pulls at my shoulders. “I know I’m a pretty tough act to follow, Maggie,” he grins, that same coy smirk that has always been my weakness. “But since I’m following myself, I just might have an edge.”

“I wasn’t worried about you not living up, Ran. I was worried about me—that somehow I wouldn’t be good enough for you the second time around.” I clutch my hands in a ball just over my chest. My heart jumps so brutally I can feel it ricocheting on my fingers. “I was worried that you’d come to your senses and realize I’m more work than I’m worth. That my baggage is too heavy. That my life is too complicated. That I’m too much.” The whites of my knuckles show under my skin. “It felt safer to reject the truth that we ever existed than to chance the possibility of being rejected by you.”

“Maggie,” Ran says, quieter this time, but still with the insistent tone from before. “Did you ever stop to think maybe that wasn’t your decision to make? I’ve spent the last six months trying to figure out who you were in my life and how I could get you back, and you’re telling me that you ignored me all this time because you were afraid I’d reject you?”

“I wasn’t ignoring you, Ran,” I assert. “It’s impossible to ignore something that’s your first thought when you wake up in the morning and your last thought before you go to bed. And then in the in-between—that stretch of night when you’re supposed to be resting and preparing for the next day—when that’s completely filled with unattainable hopes and dreams, it’s impossible to ignore. You can’t ignore something that’s become a part of you.”

Ran pushes himself closer to me on the bed, his upper body angling my direction. “Maggie,” he says, low and gentle, the rasp in his voice melting me, “I don’t need those two months back to confirm what we had was once in a lifetime.” He slips one arm out of his leather jacket, then the other, and folds it over the back of my desk chair next to us. “I’m just begging you to give me the opportunity for it to happen twice.”

I shake my head, not in disagreement, but because my whole body shakes right now and my head wavering is just an extension of that. I don’t know what to do and I don’t know how I’ve gotten here. How I’ve willingly thrown away the one thing in my life I was sure about. If there was an award given to girls that sabotage and destroy anything good that comes their way, I’d have an entire trophy case full.

“Maggie.” Ran slides closer, his knees pressed against mine. I stare at his face. His full lips quiver and his jaw is tight. “I’m going to kiss you,” he says, and dips his head a little to look up inquisitively from under his lashes. “I need to kiss you right now. Badly. Is that okay?”

The memory of his lips on mine in the hot tub rushes to mind and I want to tell him no, irrationally fearing that it won’t be like that—that it won’t even rank on the scale in comparison to that mind-blowing first kiss we shared. And for some reason, I’m worried that this new memory will replace the old, just like Ran always says they do. I don’t ever want anything to replace that perfect moment between us. It feels safer not to jeopardize it at all and keep my lips to myself.

I form the words in my head, secure the perfect delivery, and when I open my mouth to protest, all that spills out is a breathy, “Yes.”

Ran hovers his body in front of me for a beat before he tilts his head to the right and draws in closer, his eyes still locked on mine, though my eyelids flutter so fast it’s hard to see him clearly through them. I feel his breath on my skin and the heat from his body radiating between us. My stomach tightens and those pheromones of his fill my senses, intoxicating me with his soapy, minty scent. It all goes weak. Everything I should have control over—my muscles which regulate my heart, my lungs that control my breathing, my brain that keeps my nerves in check—it’s all completely haywire, malfunctioning, and on the brink of shutting down completely.

His flawless mouth is one inch from mine and I can’t look anywhere but at that divot in the middle of his bottom lip. The shallow dent disappears as his mouth pulls up into a smile, and he catches me off guard when he says, “You know you want to, Maggie. You can lick them if you like. Trust me,” he grins, “I won’t mind.”

I can’t believe he says it, but the fact that he does washes a relief over me that I’ve been craving for the past six months. The statement is so very Ran of him, and there’s no doubt this person sitting in front of me is the same man I fell in love with—the same man I’m still in love with—and the only person I can ever dream of spending my future with.

I swallow my nerves and lean toward him. With unlikely boldness, I slip my tongue out and drag it slowly over the length of Ran’s bottom lip, licking all the way across it, tracing and savoring every part of it. I pull back hesitantly, almost embarrassed, but Ran grasps the back of my neck with both hands, draws me to him, and pushes my lips to his, sweeping them softly over mine. His lips are warm and brush gently in a rhythm that leaves me craving more—not just my mouth, but every inch of my body. I curl my fingers into his shoulders, yanking him to me, and am pretty sure he’ll have ten nail marks as new additions on his skin.

“Maggie,” Ran groans against my mouth. His fingers twist in my hair as his strong hand cups the back of my head. I grip onto him tighter and he lifts up to allow more room as he lowers and slides me onto my back. My hair presses against the pillow and I gaze up at him with expectant, wide eyes. He looks down at me, searching every part of me. “You are so beautiful, love,” Ran whispers against my cheek, his mouth placing full, warm kisses across it. I lose all of my senses when he pins my earlobe between his teeth and I feel his ragged breath on my skin. I don’t know if it’s by accident that he calls me love, but it does something to me that makes me want to burst into tears.

I angle my neck into him and close my eyes as Ran lowers his body to me. The sheets tangle around us and he runs his hands up and down my arms, stroking from my fingertips up to my collarbone in soft, sweeping motions. My own fingers travel down the tight muscles of his back to his waist, and I tug his hips to me.

Releasing my earlobe, he slides his mouth back onto mine, just as I part my lips and a sigh escapes from within me. Ran’s tongue slips into my open mouth and glides along it, tenderly exploring every part of it. My body tenses, and I pull in a deep, chilled breath through my nose, and move my mouth and tongue in response to his guiding motions. It’s not the ravenous kiss I’m used to experiencing—the one where it’s all about getting something from the other person, about escalating things quickly to get to the inevitable point that is the destination and real reason for the obligatory kissing to begin with.

Kissing Ran is nothing like that. It’s not like this is some required action that will lead to what we’re really here for. Instead, it’s as though each second with his lips on mine is its own, mind-altering experience and not just a necessary step that leads to something else. But not that I don’t want it to. Just not now, not yet. I want to do things in the right order, because that’s how we work. That’s what Ran wanted, and I realize that’s exactly what I’ve always wanted, too. I want to do things right, and it wasn’t right to shut him out for the past six months. The way his lips hungrily, yet affectionately, pull at mine seems to indicate we’re making up for that lost time.

“Thank you,” Ran whispers, “for letting me back in, Maggie.” He closes his mouth over mine once more, and even though it’s the most delicate, light kiss possible, my fingers and toes tingle with desire.

I press a firm kiss to him in response and apologize, “I’m so sorry for shutting you out for so long.” Skimming my hand up his spine, I coil my fingers in his hair. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“I couldn’t give up,” Ran says as he leaves a kiss on the tip of my nose. “I have the right to love just as much as anyone else. I would have done anything in my power to get that back.” He flips onto his side and pulls me over to him, the length of our bodies pressing into the mattress. Ran reaches down for the covers that are twisted around our legs and draws them up to our shoulders so we’re tucked under them together. He’s warm and I’m feverish, but I press my cheek into his chest and he rests his chin on the top of my head, not minding the heat, but wanting more. “I had every intention of storming over here and demanding it back from you. You made it so hard these past six months. What changed tonight?”

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head slightly. His eyes tighten like he’s trying to understand. “Nothing about you changed. Nothing about us changed.” I run my fingers over his chest, feeling his heart underneath their tips. It’s slow, methodic, and assuring. “We might have lost those two months, but we didn’t lose us.” I sigh into the fabric of his shirt. “I fell in love with you fast, and I fell in love with you forever. Even though that time was stolen from us, the way I love you never could be taken.” Ran tightens his arms around me and I glance up into his eyes and say, “I just hope you’re able to fall in love with me again as easily as you did before.” Guarding myself—just like I always do—I drop my head back onto his chest and bury myself against it.

Like I’ve spoken something I shouldn’t, Ran’s frame goes rigid. It just makes me hold onto him tighter, because I can’t allow the chance for him to slip away again. I grip onto him desperately, with everything I have. “That can’t happen,” Ran says quietly after too much silence. “I can’t fall in love with you again, Maggie.”

I don’t allow myself to register the words right away, and before I even begin processing them, Ran says, “Because that would mean there was a time that I fell out of love with you.” He kisses my forehead. “And that never happened.” My legs, my knees, my body—everything is weightless. “I fell fast, and I fell forever, too.”

We stay like this, curled in each other’s arms, exchanging the same air and emotion for the remainder of the night. At some point I think I sleep, but it’s hard to tell because my dreams and my reality slip back and forth as I envision his lips on mine, and then awake to the authenticity of their pressure and heat against my skin. For hours we lay there, only stirring to exchange “I love you’s” and the assurance of our presence through kisses that don’t take away or replace the memories of the past ones, but build upon the others, adding to them, just like Ran once said I added to him.

I’m almost asleep again when Ran’s low voice breaches the stillness. “So I have one more condition for you.” He strokes his fingers across my scalp. He’s been doing that for hours and it’s the most calming, soothing thing I’ve ever experienced.

I shake the sleep from my head. “Condition?”

“Yes,” he smiles. “For your forgiveness.”

“My forgiveness?”

A breath of a laugh slips from his mouth. “Yeah, I still have to forgive you for almost throwing away the best thing that ever happened to either of us. And I’ll do that, but under one condition.”

I love the playfulness in his voice and know full well that I’m forgiven—his lips and words have already made that quite clear. But I go along with his game.

“You’re quite a little thief, you know that?” Ran’s fingers slide along the edge of my shirtsleeve and he tugs at the hem. “You stole my shirt; you stole the last six months. You a klepto, Maggie?”

I tuck my arms under his and press against him, nuzzling his solid chest. He smells so good. I don’t think I could ever get enough of his smell, even if it’s all I ever breathed. “It’s not nice to call people names, Ran.”

“Is that so? Because I believe you had a lengthy list of ones for me, if I remember correctly. But in all fairness, I don’t actually remember correctly.”

An unrestricted laugh bursts out of me. God, I love this man.

“So, since I’m not going to turn you in for all the stealing you’ve done, I’ve got a compromise.” Ran grins down at me, flashing that sexy smile of his I’m helpless against. “You owe me two months.”

I tilt my head up.

“For two months of your summer break, you’re mine. All sixty days. Twenty-four seven.” His eyes lure me with their bright gleam.

“And what are you going to do with me for those two months?” I cock my head coyly.

“I can think of a few things.” Ran smiles and lifts up his brow. “And I believe we already have a list of adventures in case we run out of ideas.” He slouches down so we’re face-to-face and seals his mouth on mine. His tongue teasingly curls along the edge of my lips. “But somehow, I don’t think we’ll run out of ideas, because all I want to do is live my life with you, Maggie. If we just sat and stared at each other for two months straight, that would be enough.”

“No it wouldn’t,” I say, shaking my head. “Because two months with you could never be enough.” His lips shed a smile and I smother it with my mouth. “I want forever.”

“You’ve got it, love.” Ran folds me into his chest and pulls me close. “But just so you know, it was always yours.”