I shook my head, both fearing and anticipating what was coming next. But nothing could’ve prepared me for those three little words that trampled over me like a herd of fucking cattle.

“I love you.”

I shook my head again, not to disagree, but to shake the words from my brain. Words he couldn’t have really said. It was either my imagination or lies. They had to be. Either way, my heart couldn’t take much more. The barely held together seams of the last mending had started unraveling the second I saw him in that bed. ALIVE. And with those three little words that held so much power I felt them reach down my throat into my chest and start snipping away at the fraying threads stitch by stitch. “No. No, you can’t just love me.” I heard myself choke out. “You just think you do because now I belong to someone else,” I rationalized. “And you want what you can’t have.”

“Fuck that," he said, anger lacing his words. His eyebrows pointed inward causing lines on his forehead to appear. "You think I just decided NOW that I loved you?”

“Well, maybe I don’t love you.”

“Doc, this wasn’t a revelation 'cause you showed up with Justin Bieber's stunt double and I thought you were engaged. I love you because I fucking love you. I’ve loved you since way back before I fucked it all up, you know, the first time. I thought if I pretended to be happy that I’d be happy but it took months of sitting in the dirt being tortured every single fucking day to realize that the real torture was not telling you how I fucking felt from that very first day.”

“You...”

“I loved you when I carried your broken body to Mirna’s that first time. I think I even loved you from the second I saw you up on that water tower. You were so broken...and so fucking beautiful.”

“When you saved me,” I said, unable to yet find my voice it came out as a whisper.

Preppy shook his head. “No, when you saved ME.” I gasped and placed my hand over my chest where I was sure I was about to pass out from the pain. Tears welled up in my eyes and rolled in warm drips down my cheeks to my chin. Preppy reached out and wiped the tear from my chin with his thumb. He then placed his own hand over his chest like he was feeling the same kind of unraveling I was. “And before you say anything else. Before you tell me that I can’t really love you, or to fuck off, or that you don’t feel the same way, I have to tell you first, that I don’t like being lied to.”

“Who lied to you?” I asked, trying to look anywhere but into his eyes, but it was impossible. I was locked into his determined gaze.

“You did, Doc. You fucking lied to me,” he growled.

“When?”

“Twice actually. First, when you told me you didn’t love me.” Preppy took a step forward, and I instinctively took a step back. He chuckled low and deep. “Because you and I both know it’s bullshit.”

“And the second time?” I tried to swallow down the lump forming in my throat that was threatening my airway, causing me to breathe erratically. My chest heaved up and and down with the need to catch my breath.

He smiled wickedly. “Then when you said I couldn’t have you.”

“Why...why all this? Why now?” I asked.

“Because, Doc. When I was still in that fucking hole I made a promise to myself that I was going to find you. Find us again. What I didn’t realize was that before I could do that, I had to find me first and there wasn’t anything you or anyone else could do to push that along.”

“Did you find you?”

“Fuck yeah, I did.”

“Therapy?”

“Something like that.”

“Now come home. We’ve got something else we got to take care of. Together.”

“What’s that?” I asked, my heart still fluttering like a schoolgirl.

He reached in his back pocket and handed me a stack of papers. “We found him. We found Bo. He’s been living with me at the house for a while. Doc, I don’t want him to have the same life as me. I see me in him and I think we can still save him. Just got to get his useless mama to sign these.”

Application for Adoption of Minor Child was the heading.

I leapt into his arms and nodded. Tears spilled down my face. “So what do you say, Doc?” He asked. “You wanna be my baby mama?”

I scrunched up my face like I had to think about it. “Are you going to keep me this time?”

Preppy smiled from ear to ear. “Yeah, Doc. And I’m never fucking letting you go,” Preppy said. He reached behind him and took off his shirt in that way that only men can do. I gasped when he leaned over to the nightstand and flicked on the lamp.

“Wow,” I said. When I noticed Preppy’s muscles under his shirt it was nothing compared to seeing them tight and perfect without his shirt. And although his ridiculous body had me foaming at the mouth that wasn’t what I was staring at. The wound on his side. The one from the gunshot. The one that healed wonky and left a criss crossing of scars across his torso had been tattooed over by a large intricate colorful piece that had me in tears all over again. Red lips. Glasses. Pencil skirt. Even the bow tie heels Mirna had given me. “It’s me,” I gasped.

“So you gonna answer me or just lay there drooling?” he asked with a wink. “You coming home?”

“Yes. I’m coming home,” I said and the warmth on Preppy’s face was enough to melt away and fears or doubts I might have had.

“Good, now we can get to the part where we fuck,” he said, and his mouth came down over mine.

“Wait, where are we going to live? Mirna’s house already sold. I sent the keys down months ago,” I said.

“More fucking, less talking,” Preppy said, tossing me onto the bed.

Who was I to argue?

He didn’t waste any time, hooking my booty shorts and panties and dragging them off my legs, tossing them to the side. Without hesitation he pushed my thighs apart and dove in. The second his tongue made contact with my clit I moaned long low and LOUD.

“I missed this beautiful pussy,” he said against me, the vibrations of his words mixed with the circular tongue motion was bringing me closer and closer to the edge.

I was about to come, I could feel it right there, just a few more long strokes of Preppy’s talented tongue and I... heard my dad come in from his bowling league game. “Andrea?” He called out, but Preppy didn’t stop. Not only did he not stop he pushed a long thick finger into my ass and I squealed. He reached up and covered my breast with his hand, pinching hard on my nipple. “Are you home? Bowling sucked. We lost to that group of women in their eighties again. I’m pretty sure we’re going to be last again this year.”