✅ The Last New Start [NaNoWriMo2021]

69. Lips, Love, and Magic

This chapter is dedicated to twilight. Thank you!

"I'm sorry."

"Don't say that," Tess answered quickly. She didn't want Spike to feel guilty for being honest about his feelings. "Something like that takes a lot of courage to say. And it feels like poetry to me. So don't get all angsty, right? I haven't even got a sword to steal." A second of laughter did little to break the tension this time. But they were still there, still talking, and Tess knew that was a good thing.

"I feel like I'm letting you down. There's so many things I'm supposed to do, and I don't know how. Isn't it supposed to be natural?"

"I don't know. But what I can say is I'm happy you're here, and I'm happy you're you. I feel alive whenever we're together, and if I don't see you for a day I'm looking forward to the next time we meet. And I'll make this really clear, what I want isn't the feel of your lips, as if I could claim one part of you, or to gaze adoringly at your muscles like the girl in some trashy paperback novel. It's you. Just you. Can I have that? Can you be my–"

As soon as she'd spoken the words, she started to think about what she'd just said. He was still trying to understand his own feelings, and a part of her said that it was unfair to be asking more of him. Maybe he needed space to sort himself out before he could even think about someone else. But it had felt like the right thing to say in the moment, and it was only when she heard her own words that the cresting wave of embarrassment started to wash over her.

"There's an inner voice screaming at me to say 'yes' right away," he whispered thoughtfully. He stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulders, so that he could look straight at her and she would know that he was serious for once. It was a slightly awkward position because her hands were still in his, but that didn't matter now. Her whole attention was on his words. "It's hard not to. But I think I can't, not now. I'm... I think I'm not boyfriend material."

"You–" Tess started, but he interrupted with one raised finger that didn't quite touch her lips.

"Please, let me finish. It's hard to say this. But there's things I need to deal with. Things I can't share. I want to say..."

Tess wanted to remind him of the film they just watched, about a samurai who put his own issues in front of his happiness. She wanted to tell him that whatever the problems were, she could help him. And then she thought about her own problems over the last couple of months. She'd even told herself that she wasn't ready to say anything about her feelings yet, and she needed to wait until she was out of diapers at night before she could even think about falling in love. And she knew she couldn't throw the first stone here. She wanted to know that there was something between them, but she also needed to sort out her own problems first so that she wouldn't have to lie to him.

"Me too," she answered. "Sorry, I didn't think about it like that. But maybe..." A pause, and a deep breath. She ran the conversation through in her head again, and none of the options made sense. She'd never thought this would be the hard part.

"How about this? We're not 'dating', whatever that means. I'm not even sure I know. But we enjoy each other's company, and we spend a lot of time together because that makes us happy. We've both got things we need to deal with before we're ready to take that next step. But we could use some moral support, right? Even if it's something you can't talk about, knowing there's somebody who cares can take away some of the pressure. I really wish sometimes I could just switch off all the worries, and times like tonight are the closest I can get. So, I don't know... I'm not sure what I'm suggesting, but..."

'I know a way to switch your worries off,' Tess could have said. She hadn't liked being small and helpless, but she couldn't deny that when Gabby had tried to turn her into a baby, all her stress over school and exams had completely vanished. She hadn't even been worrying about the bedwetting thing, like it hadn't happened yet. And that morning with the pacifier, she had become careless because she wasn't worrying about anything. Maybe there was a way to do something similar that wasn't so humiliating and wouldn't go too far, but it wasn't something to bring up now. She went for a more practical response instead: