All the Things We Need

by Megan Hart

  I didn’t know what to say to that, but I didn’t have to say anything, because my mother kept talking.

  “Susan has to do what makes her happy,” my mother said after a minute. “Better that than making everyone around her miserable.”

  “Is that what you did?” I blurted and immediately wished I hadn’t.

  My mother didn’t look surprised. She nodded. She wrapped her straw paper around and around her fingers until it broke.

  “I tried,” she said finally.

  I didn’t like it when my mom had grilled me about my private life; it seemed wrong and invasive to do so to her. What had happened between her and my dad was their business, and old news. Knowing the details of it wouldn’t change anything that had happened since.

  My mother reached to take my hand, just for a second, before letting it go. “You were happy with him, Elise.”

  “I was…at least, I tried to be.” I managed a smile. “Things don’t always work out.”

  My mother gave me a look. “So, keep trying.”

  “That’s your advice?”

  “Yes. That’s my advice. I didn’t, and look where it got me.” My mother linked her fingers together, her hands in front of her on the table, but her gaze was steady and unapologetic. “It doesn’t get your sister anywhere, either, does it?”

  “Being unhappy isn’t a good excuse for being a jerk to everyone, Ma.”

  My mother nodded. “Exactly. Or for being a jerk to a nice man who’s clearly over the moon for you.”

  “So it’s my fault? You don’t even know what happened!”

  “I’m just saying.” My mother spread her fingers apart and gave me a look of wide-eyed innocence. “When a chance to be happy slaps you in the face—”

  “I know, I know. You don’t turn it down.”

  “You can want what you want,” my mother said with one lifted, lecturing finger that somehow didn’t annoy me the way it usually did. “But you get nothing if you give up on it.”

  That wasn’t how the saying had gone when I was a kid, but it made a lot of sense. I grabbed my mother’s hand and squeezed. Maybe someday she’d tell me about the summer before my dad left. Maybe she wouldn’t. It didn’t matter—for the moment, she was the mother I’d always wanted, and what she’d said made a lot of sense.

  CHAPTER 44

  You learn more from the things that end. You get what you work for. My mother and Alex had both been dead right when it came down to matters of the heart. I’d learned so much from everything that had ended. Esteban. Niall.

  George.

  I had one more message to send him, this time in the light of day instead of 3:00 a.m. No words. Just a picture of the inside of my wrist.

  He would know what it meant, I told myself as I tried to angle it just right so that he’d be able to see that the rose was now covering up the other piece, that it wasn’t some weird, random picture of some other tattoo I’d had done. It could’ve been anyone’s arm, actually. But I knew he would know it was mine.

  All the other times I’d sent messages off into the ether, knowing he would read and not answer them, that I was being the worst sort of fool, I’d always regretted it immediately. Never enough to keep from doing it again and again, but that’s the thing about being an idiot in love. It feels terrible, but not doing it feels worse.

  This time, the second I hit Send and the little message bubble popped up with my picture inside it, all I felt was relief. Light. I felt unburdened.

  I finally, after so long, felt free.

  The small D next to the message turned to an R. In the past I would’ve held my breath, imagining him all those miles away with his phone in his hand. Getting the message notification. Opening the app, reading the message. Then deleting it, unanswered.

  This time, I was moving to swipe the conversation into oblivion, then close out of my account entirely. Delete the app itself. I was done with him and this, all of it. Finally letting go.

  And of course, that’s when he answered me.

  Hey, how are you? Hope things are well.

  I stared at it. My hands shook. I drew in a breath and then another, feeling a little faint and sick to my stomach. I waited to feel something other than roiling nausea—hope? Excitement? Joy? Relief? But all I felt was…nothing.

  On his phone, the D next to his message to me would have become an R. He would know I read his reply. It went both ways. And maybe he was waiting, holding his breath, imagining me on the other side of our tenuous connection, wondering what I would say to him. Maybe he was doing a lot of things I would never know.

  I did not type an answer.

  I logged out of my account.

  And then I deleted that app from my phone and called Niall, instead.

  * * *

  He didn’t have to see me. Niall. He could’ve said no when I asked him. But he didn’t, so there I was on his living room couch, uncertain what was going to happen but desperately willing to find out.

  Niall came out of the kitchen with a glass of iced tea that he set on the coffee table in front of me without a word. I hadn’t thought I wanted anything to drink until he put the glass there. The question was, did I want it because he’d given it to me, or did he give it to me because he knew I’d want it?

  Did it matter?

  “So,” he said just as I opened my mouth to speak, not that I was at all sure of what I meant to say. He stopped, waiting for me to go on, but I shook my head. “So.”

  “Yeah.”

  I drank some iced tea, perfect the way I liked it, and put the glass back. I wiped my damp fingers on the hem of my dress.

  Niall sighed and settled onto the armchair across from me, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. His fingers linked. He looked over at me through the fringe of his too-long bangs.

  “So,” he said a third time. “Elise. I’m so fucking sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Niall. I’m sorry.”

  We stared at each other. In two seconds I could’ve been across the room and in his arms, but I didn’t move. And that was stupid, I thought. Cutting off my nose to spite my face. Stupid and proud and—

  Niall was suddenly at my feet. Kneeling there, reaching for my hands. I was so taken aback I didn’t know what to do, only that my heart was pounding, and I was a little short of breath.

  “I miss you too fucking much,” he said, pulling me closer. “Tell me you don’t hate me.”

  I’d never thought he’d go to my knees for me. I could barely speak. “I don’t hate you.”

  “Tell me,” he said, kissing me, “that you want me.”

  “I want you, Niall.” Could it really be so easy? Could someone who’d almost slipped through my fingers be within my grasp again—just like that?

  Maybe that’s the thing about real love…it comes easier than the kind you have to break yourself for.

  Maybe Niall and I wouldn’t have to break ourselves for each other. That was a maybe I could handle.

  I took his face in my hands as his arms went around my waist. Our mouths met, ravenous and devouring.

  He moved onto the couch. We were tangled, arms and legs. Rolling, him beneath and me on top. He ran his hands up to my hips and tugged at my panties; when they didn’t come off fast enough, he tore them. He worked open his belt and zipper and was inside me a half a minute after that.

  I cried his name as he thrust inside me. I tore at his shirt, one button pinging off the coffee table. I got my hands all over his chest, my nails leaving faint pink marks. I couldn’t stop myself from pinching his nipples, though only for a second before I put my hands flat on his chest, instead.

  His teeth raked my throat. His fingers wound in my hair, tangling and pulling and keeping me from moving. His lips moved on my skin. “Fuck me.�
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  I rolled my hips, taking him in deep. I did as he asked, hard and harder. The slap of our flesh sent me higher and higher, and so did the way he said my name over and over, urging me on. When he slid his other hand between us so that his knuckles rubbed my clit with every thrust, I couldn’t hold back anymore. I came with a low shout.

  Niall bucked. I felt him throb inside me and let out a surprised cry—I’d heard of that happening, but had never actually felt a man come inside me. I rocked on him, grinding down, so close to another orgasm that all it took was the shift of his hand against me to send me over.

  We slowed. He was still hard inside me when I stopped moving. Breathing hard, I turned my head a little until he released my hair and I could sit up. I traced the marks I’d left on his skin with my nails. I leaned to kiss his mouth. Niall put his arms around me, and I rolled to his side where I found a way to fit between him and the back of the couch with one leg thrown over his and my skirt tucked tight between my legs to keep from making a mess. I was too worn out to worry about it more than that.

  I ran my hand over his chest to settle on his belly and kissed his shoulder. We were quiet. When I heard the pattern of his breathing shift into the steady drone of sleep, I hugged him, hard.

  He stroked my hair. “I love you.”

  I pushed upward to look at his face. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “No. Almost. I could be.” He blinked and yawned and shifted so we were a little less cramped.

  I sat up, still tangled up with him. “Niall.”

  “Elise,” he said with a small smile.

  “We really should talk.”

  He groaned, but good-naturedly. We untangled ourselves and managed to get off the couch without breaking anything. I went to the bathroom to sponge off my skirt and came out to find him in the kitchen, puttering around with plates and toast and butter and hot water on for tea.

  He turned when I came in. “Hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  He put his arms around me and held me tight. We stayed that way, slightly rocking, until the kettle started whistling. I took plates from the cupboard while Niall filled the mugs with hot water and tea bags. We both took seats at the table, though he got up after a second and went to the cupboard to bring something back that he slid toward me.

  “Cinnamon sugar,” he said.

  I started to cry.

  “Hey, hey!” He protested, moving around to sit next to me and take my hand. “No crying. It’s your favorite, you told me so yourself.”

  “That’s why I’m crying! Because you remembered!”

  Niall laughed and kissed me then wiped away my tears with his thumbs. He cupped my face with both his hands. “Of course I did.”

  I didn’t tell him that there was no of course about it. I kissed him, instead. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” Niall said, “even if you’re a weirdo about cinnamon sugar.”

  “And other things?”

  He smiled again. “Yeah. And other things.”

  We drank tea and ate our perfect cinnamon-sugared toast and yawned our way upstairs to brush our teeth and flop into his bed. I fell asleep almost instantly. When I woke, the sun was bright, and the bed was empty.

  I followed the scent of coffee. He’d made pancakes. I paused in the doorway wearing the T-shirt I’d borrowed from him the night before, self-conscious about my hair and smudged eyeliner and the fact I’d told him that I loved him, even though he’d said it first this time. I took a seat in front of the platter of pancakes, and he sat across from me.

  “I’ve been making a list for you,” Niall said formally.

  Both my eyebrows went up. I was no stranger to making lists, but I hadn’t often been the recipient of one. “Okay.”

  He cleared his throat and pushed the legal pad toward me. On it were two columns written in his tightly angled handwriting. “Yes” and “No.”

  There was yes to blindfolding and hand tying. No in capital letters with an extra no added to it in the front and back to “butt stuff.” I had to clap a hand over my mouth to stop myself from bursting into laughter. Beneath “Yes” he’d added “clothes” with a small asterisk, which marked a footnote at the bottom of the page and the words “for you.”

  That was it; I had to guffaw. “Niall. Oh, my God.”

  “I figured I needed to be up front with you,” he said, still sort of stiffly. He’d poured us both coffee, but he hadn’t eaten very much. “Read the rest of the list.”

  “Yes to toys that are not meant for the back door. Yes to calling me Mistress—” I paused, still reading. “I don’t care to be called Mistress, but thank you. Yes to being made to clean the bathroom?”

  He shrugged. “I hate a nasty bathroom anyway.”

  “Well, I’m on board with you taking it over, but not like a sex thing,” I said carefully. “Unless that’s your…thing?”

  “I don’t have a thing. I just thought if it was your thing…”

  “It’s not my thing,” I said, and looked at his list again. “No to anything in public like wearing a collar or being ordered around like a dog. No to anything that hurts too much, like clothespins on the balls— For fuck’s sake!”

  “I don’t think I’d like it,” he told me.

  That was it, I had to touch him. I pushed out of my chair and settled onto his lap with the list still in my hand. “I don’t want to put clothespins on your balls, Niall.”

  I kissed him for that look of blatant relief. And for lots of other reasons. Mostly because of love, pure and unadulterated and overwhelming.

  His arms went around me. He had to tip his face up for my kiss because of the way I’d straddled him. “This…this is okay, though. You on top.”

  “I like to be on top, baby.” I nuzzled his throat for a second before looking into his eyes. “Thank you very much for this list. You have no idea what this means to me. And I also think you’ve been watching way too much porn. I mean, I don’t have a problem with porn or watching it, in general, but I think maybe you’ve been looking at some stuff that’s a little too scary.”

  “I did a category search,” he admitted. “I couldn’t get through a lot of it. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. God,” I said. “The fact you even tried at all makes me want to kiss you all over. It’s really special, Niall. But what did I tell you about porn before?”

  “That what you like and do isn’t the way it is in porn?”

  “I shouldn’t be surprised you remembered that, but the fact you did makes me love you so much right now I can’t even stand it.” I held back a sniffle.

  He squeezed me hard again. “Don’t you cry!”

  “I won’t. Okay, maybe a little.” I buried my face against the side of his neck and breathed away the tears. His hands soothed up and down my back. I snuggled closer. I thought about what Alex had told me, about the reasons why we fall in love. “Niall, listen…it’s not about the things we do or don’t do. It’s about how you make me feel.”

  He shifted my weight a little, but kept holding me close. “How do I make you feel?”

  “Taken care of.” I didn’t even have to think about the answer; the words came out at once. “Understood.”

  “I like to take care of you, Elise.”

  I leaned back to look into his eyes. “You make me feel known, Niall. Inside and out. Hey, hey, don’t you cry now.”

  “If you get to,” he said sternly, eyes glittering, “I get to.”

  But neither of us dissolved into tears. We both smiled. I brushed his hair out of his eyes and let my fingertips trace his eyebrows. I marveled at how beautiful his face had become to me. I leaned close; I breathed him in.

  “I love you,” I whispered again so I could taste the words. Sweet like honey. Rich like wine.
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  We kissed for a while until both of us were breathing fast, and he was hard. It took a small change of position, a little rearranging, and I was straddling him. The chair creaked as I rocked on him. I tightened my thighs against his hips when he tried to move.

  Niall kissed the curve of my collarbone above my scooped neckline, then gathered me close with his head pillowed on my chest for a few seconds before he looked up at me. “I don’t know if I can be what you want.”

  “You’re exactly what I want. Better than that, Niall, you’re what I need.” I shook my head. “I told you, it’s not about the toys or the games. Why don’t you believe me?”

  “Because I don’t think if you like something that much you should have to give it up,” he said seriously. “And I think that if I don’t give it to you, you’ll want to find it from someone else.”

  It was a fair concern. “I don’t get off on making someone do something they don’t want to do. So, sure, would I like to push your boundaries and explore some territory you’ve never tried? Well, wouldn’t you want to do that with me, if there was something you liked and I hadn’t done?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I’d like that you haven’t done,” Niall said.

  “And that bothers you.”

  He shifted me again, one hand gripping my knee. “Yeah. Of course it does.”

  “I can’t change it.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “For me, what it all comes down to is really pretty simple. I like to be taken care of. Even better when I don’t have to explain or repeat myself. The rest is only icing, Niall.” I ran my finger over his lips until he opened his mouth, and then I kissed him.

  “The icing is the best part,” he said into my kiss.

  I smiled. “Eat too much, and it will make you sick.”

  “But you’ve had that kind of relationship. Guys who did those things. That guy who broke your heart. He did that stuff, right? And the other one, the one you were with when we met.” Niall frowned. “Hard to convince me that after having that, you’ll settle for plain, old-fashioned sex.”

  “You made me a list,” I reminded him. “You’re willing to try some new things. What more could I possibly want?”