Archive of Our Own

“Don’t go.”

Even in his sleep, Caleb’s grip is firm against your wrist. Almost like, even in the comfort of dreams, he was plagued by the feeling of you slipping through his fingers like sand.

Your heart throbs at his gentle pleas. It’d been two weeks since you’d left Skyhaven—since he’d let you leave. Two weeks since you’d both decided to start being honest with yourselves—honest with how you felt for one another. How you’d always felt for each other.

Two weeks since you’d given yourselves to each other in the most intimate ways possible—something you found yourself replaying over and over in your head. Particularly at night, when you were alone in bed.

But was it a misplaced night of passion? Fueled by the overwhelming trauma you’d both endured, both then and all your lives?

Whether it was or wasn’t, it didn’t matter. Because you’d chosen to leave. And he’d chosen to let you.

But even now, the way the summer light hit the defined ridges of his thick biceps made you blush like some lovestruck schoolgirl. Made you remember just what those arms could do to you—had done to you.

You physically shake your head, pushing those thoughts away. If you had any hope of returning to the things were, you absolutely could not be reminiscing on the way Caleb held you, devoured you.

When his thick eyelashes flutter open, his violet eyes misted with an unbridled despair and longing, his hand coming up to your face to smooth your hair that the wind had ruffled.

Even awake, he can’t help but plead brokenly, “Don’t leave me alone.” His voice is faraway, like he was still caught in a battle between nightmares and consciousness. It’d only been two weeks since you’d gone back to Linkon, but the way you’d left things made everything all the more complicated and tense.

Did you want to go back to the way things were? Pretending you felt nothing more than innocent, platonic, love for the man you’d craved nearly all your life?

No, you didn’t. But worse than going back to a life of pretending was a life where you couldn’t even look Caleb in the eye anymore because of one night.

He was the most important person in your world. Could you really risk that over one night that very well might’ve been an emotional mistake, born of desperation and vulnerability, on both your parts?

But for Caleb, now that he had you in his fingertips again, even when things were fractured and unresolved, all he could think about is how your lips were slightly parted, sheened with moisture. How the summer heat made your cheeks flush—nearly the same shade as when he had you folded beneath him.

Unbeknownst to you, Caleb had never been more assured in anything. Everything he ever did when it came to you was carefully thought out and highly intentional.

You would never be a mistake to him.

Without thinking, as if you were his center of gravity, he leans in towards you. His eyelids are heavy with the weight of his thick fluttering eyelashes, still caught between dream and reality. His lips instinctually seek yours, as naturally as his lungs inhaled air—desperate to feel what it felt like to have you again. Not just in his sleepless and hopeless dreams.

For a second you’re drawn to him like you were that night, still that helpless moth drawn to a blinding light. But rational thought, ever the annoying presence, resurfaces.

Your eyes widen, and the gentle breeze sweeps against you. Something catches in your eye, maybe dust or a fragmented blossom petal. Against your heart’s own longing, you push him back gently, trying to blink the discomfort away. Tears had already welled in your one eye, threatening to spill over.

“Caleb?” you ask, honestly unsure if you’d mistaken yourself, your vision blurry in the one irritated eye. If, like the countless lonely nights leading to this summer day, you’d imagined him leaning in to kiss you.

Caleb’s nebulous eyes widen as you push him back, his face falling into a heartbroken dejection. The same feeling when you’d told him you couldn’t stay in Skyhaven. Stay with him.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The resignation in his voice makes your heart squeeze painfully. You try to reassure him, “No it’s okay…I just got something in my eye.” On cue, your eye starts to twitch and your hand instinctively comes up to rub at it, even when you know you shouldn’t.

“Let me see,” Caleb murmurs, sitting up off the stone wall he was leaning against. Relieved to have an excuse, he leans in closer, looking into your teary eye.

“Did you have a nightmare?” you can’t help but ask, knowing he won’t tell you anyways. Ever the protector, he’d rather face everything alone than burden you with even, what he considered, a silly little bad dream.

You fight the urge to shiver when his eyes flicker to your lips, before he smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes, holding the heavy weight of both his unending longing and depthless loneliness.

His eyes reluctantly meet yours again, fingers brushing the hair away from your twitching eye.

“Don’t blink,” his voice is unbearably gentle, his other hand coming up to tenderly hold your face in his fingers. He bites back a groan as his body reacts viscerally to the feeling of your skin against his again.

His hands thread into the strands of your hair, and he leans in until his face is mere inches from yours. Your heart pounds so painfully you can hardly hear anything but the rushing of blood in your ears. You can’t focus on anything but Caleb’s parted lips and warm breath.

This was far too dangerous. Your resolve to return to ”normalcy” was quickly dissolving, leaving absolutely no traces of its existence behind.

Like he’d done so many times before, he blows gently into your eye. Except it doesn’t feel quite like when he used to do it before, when you were younger.

You shudder at the feeling of his breath against your sensitive eye. Tiny delicate petals land in his hair, his skin glowing under the soft sunlight. Despite the circles under his eyes, he looked just as you remembered him. Just how he did when he held you against his naked chest on your last night in Skyhaven.

The moment is charged with unspoken tension and you know you should pull away. But you can’t bring yourself to. Your breath catches when one of his hands abandons your cheek, placing his palm over your hand that rests on your thigh. The feeling of his thumb stroking your skin feels so unbearably familiar and natural you have to bite your lip to keep from gasping out loud.

Again, his stormy eyes fall to your lips before he pulls away, his eyes downcast and his warm palm abandoning your clenched hand. He falls back against the stone wall, the conflict of emotions on his crestfallen face speaking for him.

He knew exactly what he wanted, but he’d never force it if you didn’t feel the same. If you regretted him.

Spotting a pink petal in his hair, you give him a gentle smile, making a small step towards smoothing over your prickly relationship, “I heard…that the fragrance of endless summers can bring people sweet dreams for a whole night.”

He looks at you in surprise, heart pounding under his white tank top as you clean in closer, blowing it out of his hair, like he’d just done for you.

The delicate fleck of pink flutters into the air with the warm breeze, Caleb’s deep galaxy eyes following its path, until it lands in his outstretched palm. An olive branch of sorts.

As you move to stand, Caleb’s arm darts out, his fingers firmly enclosing around your wrist before he can stop himself. You look at him in surprise, not pulling away.

Caleb’s face doesn’t quite meet yours, but he refuses to let go, “But…there aren’t endless summers in Skyhaven.”

There’s a heartbroken desperation in his soft words, so soft you barely hear them over the rustling of foliage. It melts away the last of any lingering animosity or restraint you’d been holding onto.

You were too far gone. The past was irrecoverable. Probably from the moment you’d laid eyes on him on the tarmac on the Fleet base in Skyhaven—the first time since the explosion.

And finally, finally, you accept that you don’t want to return to the past.

Caleb was your weakness, just as you were his.

With his hand still holding your wrist, you let yourself fall back to him, grasping his face in your fingers. Before you can change your mind, you press your mouth into his, gasping when his soft lips meet yours.

Unlike the first time you’d kissed him on his couch in Skyhaven, Caleb doesn’t hesitate, wasting no time in threading his fingers into your hair and pulling you impossibly closer.

He swallows your squeak of surprise when you topple onto his lap, his hands leaving your face so that they can grasp your exposed legs, your skirt having ridden up. His strong arms make sure you situate safely and comfortably on his thick thighs. Your arms naturally loop around his neck, melting into his secure and desperate hold.

Caleb pulls you closer, your rapidly pounding hearts beating against one another. His fingers dig into the plush of your thighs as his tongue rediscovers every inch of your mouth, groaning into your lips as you squirm against him.

His fingers inch up your legs and under the hem of your skirt, rubbing the pad of his thumb into your heated skin. Your hips roll instinctively as you try to hold back your whimpers, your inner thighs brushing against his crotch.

“Caleb—!” you gasp, tearing yourself away when your core presses against his bulge, already incredibly hard as it strains against his jeans, grinding against you.

Caleb groans beneath you, his hands moving to grip your hips firmly, fingertips digging into your skin as he stills your movements.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he rasps, gripping your chin, forcing your hazy eyes to focus on his own darkened ones. His chest heaves with the effort of holding back his unbearable need for you—an unending black hole of desperation that had grown explosive over the last two weeks.

He presses heated kisses down your jaw and against your throbbing pulse, murmuring, “Go easy on me, pip-squeak.” Despite his seemingly soft and pleading words, his body moves against yours with precision and domination.

You feel him grin against your collarbone when a moan escapes your wet lips, unable to contain it when his hips thrust up into you, giving you a taste of just what you’d been dreaming about since leaving Skyhaven.

“Asking for mercy when you’re the one teasing me,” you grumble, cursing your body as it arches at his will, instinctively giving him better access to your neck.

He traps you against him, his thick arms hugging your entire body as he chuckles and pushes his lips to yours again. Through the heated clashing of tongue and teeth, you can vaguely feel your knees tingling and you realize Caleb is using his Evol to make sure your bare knees don’t scrape against the rough outdoor ground. You don’t even think Caleb realizes he’s doing it, far too lost in reclaiming what he’d thought he’d lost.

The summer breeze ruffles Caleb’s hair, catching soft pink petals. He tears himself away from your mouth, tracing a trail of wet kisses everywhere he can reach.

Taking a deep inhale of your intoxicating scent, he rasps, “Tell me to stop. Last chance.”

When his teeth graze against an already forming love bite, you moan unabashedly into the open space by his ear, “W-Why would I do that? This is what I want.”

Caleb growls, his chest vibrating against yours, “Say that again.” His fingers find their way under your skirt, kneading the soft plush of your thighs, stopping himself from venturing higher, deeper.

You’re distracted by the teasing touch of his fingers, “Say—ngh—what?”

Caleb’s fingers dig in, crescents indenting into your skin, “Say that you want me.”

Realizing that you leaving Skyhaven had simultaneously left him broken-hearted and needing validation, you pull away slightly so you can face him. Cradling his jaw in your palms, you whisper whole-heartedly, “I want you. More than anything.”

Caleb’s eyes darken to a near indigo, his jaw clenching with barely restrained desire.

He growls, “Not a mistake?” Though his tone is unbelievably commanding, you can make out the faint lingering insecurity, his bright purple eyes pleading with yours. The desperation to know that you needed him as much as he needed you.

“Not a mistake,” you affirm gently, fingers curling into his hair, lips pressing into his jaw. Your knuckles scrape against the concrete pillar, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

Before he gives into uncontrollable animalistic need, he chokes out your name, words laced with unbearable desire, desperation, and love.

“I miss you.”

Your still-healing heart splinters fractionally.

Miss. Not missed. Like, even with you in his lap and his arms encircling you, you were still just a faraway dream to him—a fantasy.

But this was reality. And the reality was that you were irrevocably his—not a bird trapped in a cage, but a bird returning home after an endless winter.

Taking his face into your hands, your lips descend upon his. Just before they meet, you whisper, “I missed you, Caleb.”

You press your lips the remaining distance to his, purposely rolling deeper into his lap as you do so. Caleb receives your kiss, not missing a beat as your tongues meet in a tangle of desperation.

Your fingers fly to his belt, undoing it eagerly. Caleb lifts his hips up, as if to give you more access, better control.

Despite his eager movements, he pulls away briefly, voice hoarse with desire but also hesitation.

“A-Are you sure?” His eyes dart around your compromising setting, heart pounding at the idea of being so vulnerable out in the open, where anyone could find you. There was little to no coverage from your position atop his lap to the back door of the store which stood wide open, the indoor counter visible.

“The store’s closed, no one will come in,” you whisper in rushed tones, glancing at the back door, “But if you want to stop…”

Caleb growls, his right hand finding your nape, turning your face back to his.

“Fuck no.”

Your teeth nearly knock together with the force at which he devours you in another all-consuming kiss. His free hand quickly helps you undo the rest of the barriers between you and his impossibly thick cock, swollen and tall against your naval.

With your skirt ridden up, only your pitifully soaked panties stand between you and him. His arms are wrapped so possessively around you that your entire body is flush with his, his manhood pressed right into your core.

Unable to wait any more, you pull your wet undergarments to the side, grinding directly onto him. His cock fits so perfectly against you, parting your sensitive lips until you’re practically fucking him with just your soaked lips.

“Christ,” he grunts into your lips, “Won’t last like this, princess.”

Your chest flutters with confidence, unbelievably turned on by his yearning for you.

“Good,” your murmur, “You know I’ve never been a patient person.”

He lets out a strangled chuckle, swearing when you purposely drag his throbbing engorged tip against your entrance, nearly impaling yourself onto him.

“That’s my girl,” he rasps, “Such a spoiled brat.”

You giggle in between desperate gasps, eyes nearly rolling back as he thrusts his hips into you, cock brushing against your clit.

“You made me this way.”

Caleb grins, grabbing the base of his erection, dragging himself intentionally up and down your irresistibly responsive skin. He leans into the corner of your neck, nipping playfully at your earlobe.

“Did I?”

You gasp as he pushes himself into you, but only enough to stretch you slightly and yearn for more—not enough to fully enter you.

“Then let me take responsibility.”

His words drip with an arrogant possessiveness that makes you keen into him, nearly collapsing against his marbled chest. His free fingers grip your chin, bringing your fluttering eyes to his.

Wordlessly, his amethyst hued eyes plead with yours—one last affirmation of consent.

Biting your lip, you nod eagerly. Caleb’s eyes darken unmistakable, his voice low and animalistic.

“Good girl.”

You feel his Evol recede, and, using only his hands, he lifts and positions you perfectly against his swollen head. Just as he sinks into you, he curses and captures your lips in a searing kiss, devouring your cry of simultaneous pleasure and pain.

Gently, he nibbles on your bottom lip, encouraging you to call out more for him. It only makes your body seize up, tightening like a vice around his cock.

Caleb stiffens, his fingers digging so forcefully into the soft flesh of your hips that your eyes roll back. It takes everything in him not to slam you down to the hilt, his erection throbbing painfully, wanting nothing more than to bury itself in you and never leave.

Incrementally, he lowers you until you sit fully on his lap. Caleb trembles visibly under you, chest heaving and thighs quivering under your own. Under the sun, Caleb glows with thin sheen of sweat, his breath ragged as he adjusts to how fucking tight and perfect you were.

“G-God, couldn’t stop thinking about this,” Caleb rasps desperately, burying his face into your chest, “Thinking about how perfectly you take me.”

You bite your lip, eyes darting around. Though Caleb’s voice was by no means loud, as the trees rustled, you can’t help but be reminded of your surroundings.

Your arms wrap around his head, cradling him to you, indiscreetly muffling his voice, “Me too, Caleb.”

Without lifting his head, Caleb looks up at you, his rhythm hungry and rough.

“Only me, yeah?”

Though his words are slightly insecure, they’re laced with a possessive confidence that reminds you just who your heart had always belonged to.

You roll your eyes, wanting to tease him just a bit. So you don’t speak, leaving his question unanswered.

Caleb’s eyebrows furrow at your intentional silence, unaware of how adorably pouty he looks.

“Tell me.”

He punctuates his demand with a sharp pointed thrust up into you, one of his hands moving up to grip your throat. You squeal, your cry strangled by his fingers as he uses his other hand to slam you down onto his lap.

The deafening sounds of skin against skin, bodies joined in inseparable union, ring out in the open space, mixing with the gentle sounds of dancing foliage to create the most sinful orchestra. Your heart races as you pray no one enters the storefront.

But Caleb only goes deeper, the lewd sounds progressively growing louder as he awaits your response. As if he might pull your sweet words out of you using his cock.

“O-Of course! Nnngh–who else would there be?”

Caleb looks unsatisfied with your response, his violet eyes wet and shiny with need.

“Please baby. Tell me that you’re mine.”

Any previous confidence that laced his words had since dissipated. Now, as the vast universe of his purple eyes stared into yours, you could tell just how desperately he needed validation. How badly he needed you to ground him in this moment—to reassure him that this was real.

That he could blink, and you’d still be there. Unlike in his dreams, where you’d be in his arms one second and gone the next.

“I—” you moan embarrassingly loud when Caleb captures your clit with his roughly padded fingers, twirling it tenderly, showing it the same care one might show a precious pearl.

He leans into your neck, his teeth grazing your earlobe.

“Please.”

Your heart squeezes at his rare vulnerability, and you find yourself confessing to everything he wanted to hear. You’d been thinking it anyway.

“F-Fuuck–! I’m yours Caleb. No one else…” you trail off as he rubs relentlessly into your g-spot, a sensation you could never quite replicate when you found yourself alone in bed with nothing but your longing for a certain Colonel and toys that paled in comparison to this.

“No one else what, baby?” Caleb demands, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper, “Tell me.”

He knocks the wind out of your lungs when he grabs your waist, using both his legs and his arms to bury himself into you—losing himself in you.

“No one else—fuck—stretches you out like this?”

Caleb swears as his filthy words make you spasm against him, his own veins throbbing inside of you. The sound of your pleasured screams has him wanting to push you further, trying to prolong this moment—a moment he’d been hoping for since that very first night.

One hand moves to your stomach. “Hah—no one else gets to be right here.” Caleb’s fingers dig gently into the soft skin under your belly button, where there’s an unmistakable bulge of where he bullies himself into you.

“N-No one!” you squeal in agreement, embarrassed by how easily he could render you a submissive fucked-out mess—putty in his hands.

Caleb swears under his breath at the sight of you, clinging to him with all the longing in the world, chasing a pleasure that you only wanted and would ever want from him.

Under the soft rays of the sun, swirls of hydrangea petals dancing around your hair, you looked like heaven reincarnate. Everything he ever wanted, and then miles more.

“No one else will ever get to feel—to know perfect you are,” he murmurs, his strong arms wrapped around your entire body, pulling you closer to him in a hug that forces you to feel the depth of his adoration for you. He holds you so tightly that you can feel the cool metal of his necklace press against your chest.

Your breath catches. Trying to convey your feelings for him, you whisper, “I-If I’m perfect, then what does that make you, Caleb?”

For a split second, Caleb seems taken aback. But he quickly composes himself and chuckles darkly, “Just a boy who had the good sense to fall for perfection.”

Your heart flutters rapidly at his words. A boy. As if he’d felt this way about you for far longer than he’d let on.

“Then I guess I’m just the foolish girl who fell for that boy.”

Caleb’s eyes widen in surprise, almost like he didn’t believe you. Didn't believe he was worthy of your affection—of you.

“Fuck baby—keep saying things like that and I…” Caleb cuts himself off with a strangled grunt, his heading falling back to gently hit the concrete column behind him. You laugh breathlessly, gently taking his head into your hands, pressing his face into your shoulder. Caleb groans as the intimate proximity amplifies your pheromones, mixing intoxicatingly with the summer air.

“And you’ll what Caleb?” you tease, your confident tone betraying how close you were.

Caleb pulls away from your chest, his fingers gently holding your chin between them. Violet eyes hooded with deep rooted desire, he looks at you with a sincerity so honest and raw that it makes the world around you fade out. The blinding sunlight seems to dim, the rustling of leaves fading into silence.

“I’ll never let you go,” he murmurs hungrily—almost a lightly veiled threat. The truth and sincerity dripping from those simple five words sobers you up briefly—just a fleeting moment of clarity amidst the haze of insurmountable ecstasy and passion.

You take his hands into yours and loop them tighter around your waist.

“You’d better not,” you whisper, eyelashes fluttering as he hammered up into your g-spot, nearly bruising your cervix as he tried to bury himself inside you, leaving imprints of himself behind.

Caleb’s jaw is slack—his teeth clenched as he fights his body’s need to release inside you, marking you as his.

“Never again,” he gasps, your name leaving his lips like a sacred prayer, “Never.”

The intensity of this moment is all too much—breaking walls that’d raised over months in mere milliseconds. Your body starts to move on its own, grinding down as he pumps up into you. The combined movements feel unbearably passionate, like ocean waves colliding with one another in a crescendo of unfiltered desire and need.

Caleb buries his face into your neck, his teeth scraping playfully against your pulse.

“Close, baby,” he rasps, movements growing increasingly erratic and desperate, “Need to fill you up, okay?”

You groan, raking welts until his biceps, fingers trailing up and down his heated skin as your gut tightens with impending release. You’re about to speak—beg for it—when you hear the distinct sound of a bell jingling.

The front door of the store.

Your muscles tense, your thighs clenching against Caleb’s lap in fear. Caleb’s violet eyes widen back at you, but he shows no signs of stopping, only chasing your combined releases even more hungrily.

Faraway and muffled, you hear a voice call out, “Hello?” Footsteps follow, loud and taunting against the wooden floor beams of the building, “Are you guys still open?”

Even amidst the sounds of your wet thighs slapping into Caleb’s, louder than the sound of wind disturbing the trees and bushes, you can hear the footsteps getting closer. But Caleb shows no signs of stopping, almost as if he cannot hear what you hear.

“Mmmf–Caleb–!” you say in hushed tones as he bounces you so enthusiastically that your brain feels like it’s rattling in your skull, “S-Someone’s—nnngh—inside.”

Caleb bites the inside of his cheek, impossibly close to his finish, “Shh, princess. Ignore them, okay?”

Your eyes widen at him in disbelief before they roll back in ecstasy. Despite your words, your actions, you couldn’t bear the idea of him stopping. Not when you were this close—when you’d missed him this badly.

“They’re g-going to hear,” you whimper, but you make no moves to stop him—in fact only meeting his movements more excitedly, clit grinding into his pubic bone.

“They’ll go away,” Caleb growls, begging, “Please. I need you.”

A strangled moan escapes your lips, inexplicably turned on by the way he begs for you—the way he needs you as much, if not more, than you need him.

You squeeze your eyes shut, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck, nodding eagerly. Caleb groans in appreciative awe, using everything in himself to bring the both of you to your explosive releases.

Heart hammering, cunt clenching unbelievably tight, you moan, “C-Close, Caleb.”

“Fuck!” Caleb moans under his breath, rambling as his cock twitches inside you, “Close too, princess. Need to mark you. Need this. Need you.”

His words are the nail in your coffin, sending you careening into your orgasm. Your nails dig into his shoulders, thighs clenching tighter around him, as your entire body seizes up. Just as you come undone, his name on your lips, the voice calls out again—closer this time.

“Helloooo?”

Caleb pulls away from your neck, one hand cradling the back of your head and the other hand clasping tightly over your mouth. If he had to guess, he’d say the person was right in front of the cashier counter, where you’d left the backdoor ajar. At the right angle, they might even be able to see the two of you.

He needed to keep you quiet, because he’d be damned if he let anyone see you like this.

But he’d also be damned if he ever missed an opportunity to hear you cry for him.

“I’ve got you,” he grits, milliseconds away from his own climax—movements sloppy and erratic, “Just like that. Fucking perfect.”

On the cusp of his orgasm, he whispers, “Let me hear you. I can’t keep trying to remember what you sound like. It’ll never compare.”

Your heart skips an erratic beat at his admission. Knowing that maybe he lay awake thinking of you, of that night, just as you did, night after night…

It made your orgasm crescendo, soaring to entirely new heights.

Your moans vibrate against his palm, the muffled cries of his name audible even with your mouth covered.

“Fuck, I’m cumming,” he gasps your name reverently, pressing his forehead to yours, “Christ, you feel incredible.”

The explosion of warmth inside you makes you groan in satisfaction, still into his hand that gently grips the lower half of your face. Caleb grinds up desperately into your tight walls, every stroke a release of thick hot seed.

The sound of footsteps still remains, and in the back of your head you know you should be concerned.

But it only makes you cum harder.

You’d say it was the same for Caleb, because even as his pearly essence dripped down your thighs, he was still pumping, still crying your name—almost loud enough to be heard beyond your little summer sanctuary.

Caleb releases your mouth, only to replace his palm with his lips, pressing a searing kiss to yours. His tongue claims every inch of your mouth, just as his cock marks every possible part of your core.

He swallows your cries hungrily, hips languid in their movements now. He tries to prolong this moment as much as possible, not ready to face reality.

In the back of your head, you can hear the store bell ringing again, either signaling the customer leaving or a new one entering. But you can’t bring yourself to care, too focused on the way his body feels inside yours.

Eventually, the overwhelming feelings—pleasure, lust, desperation—boil down until only a tender adoration remains.

Your head rises and falls rhythmically, laying on Caleb’s heaving chest. Tremors course through your entire body as you bathe in the afterglow of this moment between you and the Colonel you found yourself loving so hopelessly.

Caleb cradles your head, gently holding you tighter against his body, his fingers combing through your wind mussed hair. His lips press into your scalp, taking deep inhales of your scent.

This was the only fragrance that could give him sweet dreams for an entire night, and entire lifetime.

But then, he’s reminded of how temporary—fleeting this moment is. Like chasing the last day of summer, where the sun melts away just as you really begin to enjoy it.

On instinct, he holds you tighter—as if you might melt away from his fingertips right then and there. Even in the sweltering summer heat, you don’t mind, only sighing happily in pure bliss.

Your voice cuts through the sound of emerging cicadas, soft and hesitant, “Caleb, if we hadn’t run into each other here…would you have not come back to see me?”

Caleb freezes against you, his muscles tensing, “...Were you hoping I would? Or were you hoping I wouldn’t?”

You gently extricate yourself from his arms, looking straight at him, “I…want you to answer my question first.”

Caleb sighs, unfathomable emotions beyond the depth of his beautiful eyes, “Have you thought about me at all these past few weeks?”

You’re caught off guard by the direct question, “I—”

Caleb continues—cutting you off before you can form an answer, “How many times?”

His face is tilted upward, watching the petals of summer flowers float through the air, “When I want to see you, will you also want to see me?”

You can tell the question isn’t meant for you. It felt like a mantra that he’d repeated to himself repeatedly. And while it was directed at you, it echoes like a confession between the small space between your joined bodies.

The silence stretches on as you let the words sink in. Caleb wasn’t looking for an answer, but he needed you to feel the weight of his questions. Through the intimacy of the moment, you almost forget he’s still buried inside you, an uncomfortable sticky mess smearing against his lap and your thighs.

Finally, Caleb’s eyes meet yours against, his palm cupping your cheek tenderly. He presses his forehead against yours, skin slightly damp with a thin sheen of sweat. With a reverent whisper of your name, he finally answers your initial question.

“How could I not come?”

Your heart flutters, eyes stinging with emotion. His breath is heavy against your lips, yours rapid and shallow against his.

Just before you press your mouth into him, you whisper an answer to his question, “If you’re the one asking Caleb, then the answer is always yes.”

With those words leaving the tip of your tongue, you lean in the rest of the way to kiss him—slowly, tenderly, adoringly. The entire world melts away amidst your embrace, leaving only you, Caleb, and the endless summer surrounding you.

And just like those endless summer hydrangeas—the only ones that bloomed year-round, you’d always remain. You’d always be his center of gravity.

Even if there weren’t endless summers in Skyhaven.