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“Hugh,” he breathed again. “Hugh, god. You…” He groaned as his head fell, chin to chest, as he blew out a breath and sucked in another. “You feel so fucking good.”
There was no way he felt as incredible as I did, but I didn’t have the words to express it. All I had was my touch, my mouth on the back of his neck, the age-old rhythm of hips against hips.
Much later, after we’d sleepily showered and curled around each other in the darkness, I pressed my nose to the back of Oscar’s neck, inhaling deeply, wanting to remember this moment forever.
His breathing was soft and even in sleep, and I snuggled closer to him, wrapping him up in my arms.
“I love you,” I whispered into his skin. “This is the only happily ever after I’ll ever want.”
In the moment, I felt the truth of those words to the depths of my soul.
23
OSCAR
I woke up on January first to an empty bed.
Weak, early morning sunlight peeked through the large picture window, but the sheets next to me were cold. The tuxedo Hugh had dropped casually on the floor the night before was gone. The suitcase he hadn’t bothered unpacking the day before despite my anxious urging to “make himself at home” was also missing.
It took my brain a moment to jump to the shocking conclusion.
He’s gone.
I looked around the room in disbelief. Sure enough, every trace of Hugh had been erased from my bedroom. Before I knew what I was doing, I was half-dressed in the first pair of sweats I found in my dresser. I yanked on a pair of socks and flew downstairs, ducking into the kitchen in vain hopes he would be standing there staring off into space over a cup of coffee.
The kitchen was spotless. Coffee-less.
Hugh-less.
Had he seriously left? Had he misunderstood my… my feelings from the night before? Had I…
I stopped and slapped myself on the forehead. I was an idiot. At no point last night did I take even a moment to make my feelings clear. Yes, I’d asked him to stay, but I hadn’t clarified that I’d wanted him to stay for more than just the night.
Surely, he’d known that, right? How could he have misunderstood me after we had such an intimate connection last night? It had felt like… it had felt like making love. As cliché as that sounded, it had been different. More intense. More real.
At least… for me, it had.
I scrambled into a pair of snow boots by the back door and took off across the snowy lawn in search of my mother. She would know what to do. Meanwhile, my fingers flew over my phone screen.
First, I texted Hugh.
Oscar
Where are you??
Then, I texted Lesya.
Oscar
Do you have a way of tracking Hugh?
When thirty seconds had passed with no response from either of them, I texted Rafa.
Oscar
Have you heard from Hugh?
Thankfully, my mother and several of my siblings were already in the barn when I got there, helping with setup for the breakfast thing.
