Neon Red [Order The eBook] [Zayn]

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(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

Probably a thousand times in the past five minutes, I thought about joining him in the shower. In time, my better judgement prevailed, as that would set me back hours. I was already groomed and dressed, and whenever I went there with him everything got dirty. Plus, I liked to take my time. Shower sex never ended quickly—like last night for instance, when I slipped in after him unexpectedly and we didn't leave for what seemed over an hour. He was limping by the time we toweled off and headed to bed early for a change. He fell asleep ahead of me, nuzzled against my chest; and once he was out, I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin—one of the most gratifying things I'd experienced in recent memory. I pressed my lips to the top of his head, nuzzling his hair as lightly as I could without disturbing him.

Before drifting myself, I thought back to early January and how we collided all over again. A drunken New Year's Eve text was all it took. He had initiated it. Something like, 'Miss you'. Or, 'Doesn't feel right without you.' My contact in his phone was 'cheekbones' but his contact always varied depending on what I was calling him at the time. So when 'b' flickered across my screen as a notification (something I hadn't seen in months) it put an instant pit in my stomach—sort of like the feeling of free-falling.

I called and we spoke. How could I not? He was alone on a windy rooftop somewhere, teeth chattering, having slipped outside a New Year's party in Malibu. Right then and there, he must've told me he loved me like a hundred times—super compulsively. According to him, it was a mistake for us to split again last February. To his estimation, we deserved to give ourselves a chance. We had been working at this long enough and deserved a proper adult try. That way if things didn't work out, at least we'd know we once gave it all we got.

Then it was back to the I love you's, almost as if it was all he could say—like he wasn't sure he'd be given another opportunity to tell me. He was wasted too, the words occasionally slurring, stammering, and trailing off, but I knew what he meant. It overwhelmed me so badly that I could never keep up with that energy. Even now, weeks later, I couldn't process what was happening, all of which had been initiated by the New Year's call. A call I had taken with bated breath in the closet of my bedroom while G was in the next room at our own little party (attended only by her family and friends; never mine.)

The next day (New Year's Day, 2017) before I caught a flight to London for work, I went and got a reminder inked across my dominant hand in big, accusatory letters, so that no matter how much I beat myself up, and no matter how much I wanted to get down on myself, claiming I had no one to turn to except myself, there was now no way of looking past the fact that I was loved. Why had this feeling evaded me before? In all the years we'd spent together, I always thought I felt something akin to love, but never this grown-up shit; this enduring shit. Not in all my time with Pez or G combined did I feel this way. Positively nothing compared to the way I felt after that New Year's conversation.