“First time in the water, huh? Then I better make it good for you,” he says, pulling my hips to grind me to him before placing my hand on the side of the tub. “Hold on tight.”
He anchors his knee on the bench as he positions himself to enter me with a powerful thrust that takes me to a parallel universe of pure bliss. Each movement plunges me deeper and deeper into an alternate dimension where the city skyline glitters like a sea of gold and diamonds. Where the wintery smell of the outdoors is like a burst of new life. For the first time, I realize my real life is ten times better than any romance book.
He’s slowed down now to focus on me and my every reaction. He’s gripping me tight as he moves in and out of me, reviving me every single time. Our breath matches, and soon so do our moans. It’s like we’ve melted into each other. Absorbing each other’s every sensation.
And then the crash hits me unexpectedly, even more intense than the first. My cry urges him on as he rocks into me faster and harder. “Look at me,” he demands, turning my face toward him. Our gazes lock as he shudders over me with a groan that vibrates to my core, holding me tighter than anyone ever has. “I’m yours. Okay?”
“I love you.” He presses a lingering kiss to my neck, sealing everything I’ve ever wanted.
Someone who wants me exactly as I am.
LIVE WITH TARAROMANCEQUEEN—ROOM-ANCE
[Tara appears on camera in front of an overflowing bookshelf.]
EXCERPT FROM TRANSCRIPT
TARA: Hello, romance book lovers, welcome back to my channel. I’m hopping on here really quick today to discuss a topic that has been requested relentlessly. And that is forced proximity and room-ances.
Forced-proximity tropes are like catnip. They can take place on road trips, confined to small cars. Workplaces. And the delicious “only one bed” trope. But my personal favorite take on forced proximity is room-ances.
The thing with living with your love interest is that they’ll see you at your weakest moments. Late at night when you have no more shits to give. When you take your makeup and bra off. When you’re flat-out done with life. The most fun room-ances are those accidental nudity moments, where Person A decides it’s a good idea to be naked in the common area and Person B just so happens to walk by at that very moment.
One of the reasons it’s my absolute favorite is . . . well, it happened to me.
[Trevor appears in the frame, albeit begrudgingly. He plants a chaste yet loving kiss on Tara’s temple and peaces out.]
? epilogue
One year later—Valentine’s Day
ALMOST THERE. JUST three more steps.”
The low vibration of Trevor’s voice in the shell of my ear ricochets through me.
“Is this blindfold really necessary? I could have just closed my eyes,” I say as he guides me forward, his palms splayed over my shoulders. There’s an unfamiliar floral scent in the air, masking the usual lemon cleaner scent in our apartment. All of my senses are heightened in the absence of sight, which I am dying to rectify. “Can you at least tell me where we are? Are we in the living room? The kitchen?”
He senses my impatience and preemptively folds both hands over my blindfold to prevent me from peeking. “Ask one more question and see what happens.”
“You know I like to live dangerously.”
“I’ll hide all your books as punishment,” he warns, inching me forward a few more steps.
Something that feels like string feathers against my nose. I scrunch my face to relieve the tickle. “You’re bluffing. You’d have to alphabetize them all over again.”
“As if I don’t already do that on a biweekly basis.” The tips of his fingers graze my cheeks as he gently removes the blindfold. “Okay, you can open your eyes.”
We’re in my old room, which has become the spare bedroom by default since last year. I blink, unsure where to look first, because it’s a literal Valentine’s Day explosion in here. At least twenty helium-filled pink heart-shaped balloons of all sizes cover the ceiling entirely, curly ribbons raining down on us like a weightless curtain.
The life-size stuffed bear I fawned over in the window of a department store a couple months ago, which Trevor argued was an “obnoxious waste of space,” rests on the bed, propped against the headboard. On the bedside table sits a stunning hand-tied floral arrangement, vase overflowing with bulbous pink and white peonies. Next to it is a gigantic Kinder Surprise egg and a fresh bag of Cheetos. And that’s not even the highlight.
The wall to my right no longer houses my sad, overflowing IKEA bookshelf. In its place stands a gleaming white shelf spanning nearly the entire width of the room. Strangely, the books are artfully arranged by color, which Trevor is vehemently opposed to. Nonalphabetical order causes him anxiety.
Even more, this wall of wonder holds hope. After every one of my (many) broken hearts, I wanted to give up on love. And each time, these tender, unforgettable love stories healed me with their happy endings, one by one. Without these blueprints for epic love, I probably would have settled long before now. And I’m so glad I didn’t.
My entire life, I thought I needed to hold on to love with an iron fist. It was a feeling I needed to trap, to smother, so it wouldn’t slip through my fingers. Little did I know, when you’re with the right person, being in love never feels like the bottom is going to fall out. It’s solid, stable, and indestructible.
Sure, Trevor may be a massive grump with an irrational hatred for singing in the car. But he does what no one else has ever done. He accepts all of me. The parts no one else has seen. He listens to my every word, never cutting me off or rushing me. He accommodates my picky eating and my hoarding tendencies. I’ve even bought my own pair of Crocs to match his, which he deems “Couples Crocs.” And thanks to therapy, we’ve learned multiple strategies on how best to meld our different communicative styles.
He’s even kept his word, embracing the PDA with hand-holding and movie-worthy kisses in random places, like the frozen-food aisle in Costco. Or in the stairwell of our apartment. Or even in front of Angie, who makes a dramatic show of covering her eyes, complaining until it’s over.
I’ve been spending a lot of time with Angie lately, as her designated party planner. This year’s birthday extravaganza is going to be something special. She deserves it after the success of her heart transplant, only a few months ago. She’s insisting on a boy-band-themed party—her latest obsession, because she’s “over Disney.” I’ve been attempting to learn a TikTok dance for her, a painful endeavor I do not recommend to anyone over twenty years old.
“I can’t believe you did this for me,” I whisper, running my index finger over the book spines. “This is pure shelf porn.”
“Figured it was necessary to get you to stop leaving your books in random piles around the apartment,” he says through a low chuckle. He wraps his arms around my waist from behind and plants a soft kiss in the cove of my neck.
I zero in on a vibrant pink-and-red book I don’t recognize. It sits, cover out, in the middle of the shelf.
I pluck it from its spot. It’s light, slightly thinner than your average trade paperback. Like all my other rom-coms, the cover is illustrated. The hero and heroine are lounging on a stack of pillows. The heroine is stretched out, her head resting against the hero’s lap as she reads a book. He holds her tight, his arm wrapped around her, cherishing the moment. Artfully hand-brushed hearts fill the empty space around the couple. In bold font, the title reads, Can I Ask You a Question?
It takes a moment to register the tiny little hearts dotting the woman’s sweater. The man’s dark, tousled hair and tattoos partially visible under the rolled sleeves of his shirt. And, most telling, the way he’s looking at her, like she is everything he never knew he wanted.
The adorable cartoon couple is us.
“Open it,” Trevor urges gently.
My hands shake as I flip to the first page of the “book.” Through the tears blurring my vision, I make out another illustration. Of this very moment. Cartoon Trevor and me, standing in front of this bookshelf, heart balloons closing in around us, hugging us. As I let the successive pages fall, one after the other, the illustration changes like a flip-book. Cartoon Trevor bends the knee, my cartoon eyes enlarge like saucers, my hands slowly come up over my face in shock and awe.
Before I can even register what’s happening, Real-Life Trevor is on his knee. “Read the last page,” he instructs.
When I flip the page, the script font reads:
Tara Li Chen,
Please know I hate myself for this title. But damn, it was appropriate.