HIM & I || BXB

Epilogue

Ten years later.

"Isaac," Tom calls from the kitchen, "did you pack the dish towels or did I?"

"We have dish towels?" I mutter from the bathroom where I'm hanging the new shower curtain, and turn towards the door to yell. "I didn't even know we had dish towels."

"So then I packed the dish towels," I hear him say, quiet enough that I know he's just thinking aloud. Tom does that when he's stressed. "If I packed the dish towels, then where are the dish towels?"

"Maybe with the bath towels?" I suggest, and then curse as one of curtain rings slips from the bar. "Shit. Babe, next time we move, I want the shower to have one of those sliding doors with the foggy glass. None of this curtain fuckery."

I hear footsteps, and then Tom's arms are wrapped around my waist. "Deal."

I turn around and smile. "You know something?"

"What?"

"All these years," I say, and gently kiss his forehead, "and you still give me butterflies."

He laughs and buries his face in my neck. "You corny bastard."

"I'm serious," I murmur, hand sliding up his back to settle in his hair. He hums, and the small vibrations buzz against my skin.

"Sometimes I love you so much I don't know what to do with it," he says quietly. I smile and sit in that for moment. I feel it too. But I don't say that. There's only so much I can take.

"Now who's the corny bastard," I say, tipping his chin up. He looks at me, his eyes dark and shining, and I kiss him, sweet and slow.

"Mmm," he says, his chest pressed to mine, "how much time do we have before people get here?"

I check my watch over his shoulder. "Not enough time, baby. We still have half the kitchen to unpack."

He rests his forehead on my chest and groans. "Why did we decide to throw a party only a day after moving in? Why did we think that was a good idea?"

"Because I know us and I know we would've sat with unpacked boxes for weeks unless we had a deadline," I remind him. "Now c'mon, let's find those dish towels."

—

"So how did you guys meet again?" Katie asks, her eyes already smiling because she's heard the story a thousand times.

"Freshman year of high school," Tom says, his meeting-people voice on, but he glances at me and his eyes are bright and unspeakably fond.

"We did a science project together," I offer. "Building a cell model, right, babe?"

"Oh god, I remember now. We got such a terrible grade on that thing."

I laugh along with everyone else. "Honestly, I still couldn't tell you a single thing about cells. It's a miracle I passed that class." I make a show of nudging Tom. "Especially with this one distracting me."

"Hey," he protests, all smiles and good nature, "you were equally distracting and," he turns to our audience,  "I still managed to pull a B+."

"He remembers his grade from freshman biology. High school freshman biology." I shake my head in mock regret. "This is what I've chosen to live with."

"Exactly," Tom says. "That's a testament to how much you love me."

"Jesus, you two are adorable," Katie's girlfriend says. "It makes me sick."

I wrap my arm around Tom's waist and gently pull him closer to me. "We are pretty adorable, aren't we?"

Tom looks up at me and smiles, so real and honest my heart aches. "We are."

—

Later, once everyone's said their goodbyes and the sink is full of dishes for tomorrow and we're sitting close on our old couch with a new bottle of wine, I finally have the courage to say it.

"I feel the same, you know." I murmur, gently running my fingers through his hair.

"The same about what?" he says into my chest, a sleepy rumble.

"I love you so much that I don't know what to do with it." I can feel his breath hitch. "That's how I've always felt, probably since the first moment I saw you. You've always been almost too much."

He sits up at that and looks me directly in the eye, and it's exactly that. The look he's giving me, the set of his jaw, the crease on his cheekbone from laying against my shirt, it's too much.

"You're beautiful," I say.

He's silent for a beat, and then his thin fingers are pressed against my cheek, and he's kissing me like it's everything, and it's squeezing in my chest, pulsing and driving and so, so much. Always so much.

"I love you," he says against my lips. "I love you."

"I love you, too," I say back, too close to a sob, and for that moment, that beautiful moment, I am indescribably, purely, wonderfully happy.

The end.