[CONTENT WARNING: mature scenes ahead but nothing too explicit, you know the drill—etc. and btw i don't like crickets, so please comment lol]

Summer: Day 30

Mack's POV:

The second I see his face appear from the tunnel is the second I realize he's the person I want to spend forever with. Not just now, but forever. Because I don't ever want to say goodbye to him again; not for a second, not for a day, and certainly not for a year.

His brown hair is a sloppy yet beautiful mess on the top of his head, and his lazy smile is written on his face like a kid in a candy store, not that airports are any fun. And his lean yet muscular figure stood perfectly perfect, he could be a Calvin Klein model for all that I know. I love him.

When he spots me, his grin deepens. I let out a small laugh to myself when he dramatically runs over to me and drops his duffle bag to suffocate me in a hug.

"There's my girl," he murmurs into my hair, squeezing me tight. "I missed you." He pulls away, only to lean down and place a wet and sloppy kiss on my lips, reminding me just how good life can get when he's around. I really really love him.

"You look beautiful," he whispers. "God, you always look pretty." He laughs a little. "Shit, I sound like a broken record."

I just stare at him, my typical sappy, love-struck eyes.

Zachariah holds my face and frowns. "You're not saying anything. Did I break you with my hug? Tell me why you're not saying anything." He kisses my forehead and holds me in his arms, this time more gently. "You have no clue how good it feels to hold you again, my dad is one ass of a prick."

I laugh and my arms finally wrap around his torso. Leaning up to place a kiss on his jaw, I say, "I missed you too, bub. I just had to make sure you were real, that's all."

"All the brown hair and blue eyes of me," he says, winking.

"Ready to get out of here?" I ask, pulling my hand down to his. When I notice that the hair tie he used to wear on his wrist is gone, I almost flinch. Excuse me, mister.

"Sure," he says happily, picking up his bag and letting me lead the way. "Where are we gonna go for our dinner-date?"

"Anywhere Italian," I say with a shrug. "Nothing too special."

He leans into me a little more and says, "Sounds good."

When we get into the car, I let him drive. He said something about sitting on a long plane ride made his attention-span the capacity of zero, and that he had to do something or else he'd fall asleep. Like sheesh, I didn't know I was that boring.

Zachariah places his hand on my thigh and I trace his knuckles. "Where's my hair tie?" I ask, so low I'm sure he didn't even hear me.

"It broke," he sighs, giving me a pained expression. "Which made going to LA even worse."

"Too many reminders?"

"Of walking away when that's the one thing I should've never done," he continues for me. "Hell yeah, I felt like crap all day yesterday. I seriously think LA is cursed. I mean, two rubberbands broke there. Ironic, huh?"

"Okay Mr. Detective," I tease, opening the glove compartment to fish out another hair tie. "Here, this is a scrunchie. These don't break."

Zachariah gives me a sideways glance and takes the baby blue scrunchie from my hands. "I would only ever wear a scrunchie for you, Kenz."

"Oh I know, you're that whipped," I say with confidence, giving him my favorite toothy grin that comes about when I'm with him.

He chuckles, shaking his head. "I'm not even gonna deny that because we all know it's true. It's friggin' obvious."

I pat him on the shoulder consolingly. "Don't worry, you've got me wrapped around your finger too."

"I don't need comfort," he scoffs, giving me an 'Are you ridiculous?' face. "I would proudly admit to everyone that you're mine in a heartbeat."

"I know, I am pretty amazing," I say, basking in my own glory for a second.

He doesn't say anything for a minute, but the next words he speaks give me butterflies. Pulling into the restaurant parking lot, after killing the engine and turning the car off, he says, "Come with me to Los Angeles sometime, Kenz. I can show you around and stuff. You can meet my friends, the football team, I'll take you around UCLA."

"You want me there to ruin your life?" I ask, flustered and trying to play off my inwardly spiraling emotions.

"That's the thing, baby," he whispers, turning so that he can completely face me. "I want you with me, all the time. Here, with me. I don't want space, and if you think you're gonna mess up my life, then I'm already screwed. My life's been in your control the minute you took the keys and learned to drive."

I giggle, taking him literally. "Since I took you to 'The Rocks'?" When we argued, when I thought you would walk away forever.

"Since the night I denied everything I felt for you four years ago," he finishes, leaning down to kiss me. "I am caught up in every single aspect of you, Mackenzie. You have no fucking clue." And then his lips are on mine and I suddenly lose my appetite for food.

******

WHEN WE'RE DONE with dinner, we go back to my apartment, take it that it was closer to the restaurant and Zachariah was exhausted.

I head straight towards my bathroom and to my surprise, he follows. Brushing my hair out, he strips of his clothes behind me. He pulls his shirt over his head, and my eyes bulge out of their sockets when they fall on his bare back. And when he starts undoing his belt, I nervously walk up to him.

"What are you doing?" I ask, my voice an octave higher than usual.

Zachariah turns around, his belt and pants undone at the zipper. "Taking a shower," he says, as if it was the most casual statement to make. "The airport makes me feel so gross, I've been dying to take one."

I blush and my mouth forms an 'O' shape, my gaze trailing down his long torso. "Can I join?" The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

Zachariah's jaw drops to the ground, his eyes widening.

"I—I mean," I stutter, my face turning a beet red. "Nevermind."

I go to walk away, but his strong arms wrap around my waist, pulling my back to his solid chest. "Baby, you can't say that stuff and then walk away. Hell yeah I want you to join me," he says, his voice husky. "By all means, be my guest."

I giggle and unravel myself from his hold, looking up at him. "Idiot, you should've said that instead of acting like I told you I was pregnant."

"You can't get pregnant yet, Kenz. We haven't even had—"

"There's like a small possibility you can get pregnant off your own eggs as a woman," I say, factually.

"And what're the chances of that actually happening?" he retorts, staring at me as I pull my shirt over my head. It's not like he hasn't seen me in a bra or bikini before.

I shrug. "I don't know. Stop staring at me as I undress, you're making me nervous."

"Alright," he chuckles, turning around and taking his pants completely off, boxers and everything.

I gulp, removing the rest of my clothing. We're really doing this, huh? And then it finally dawned on me—oh my god, I'm getting naked in front of Zachariah. 

We're gonna make a movie out of this, haha.

Oh my gosh, you dirty minded freak. Not a porno.

When all my clothes are off, I spin around and Zachariah inhales sharply. Covering myself up, I take a step towards him, my veins shooting with a certain wave of adrenaline. He rakes his eyes over my body, hypnotizing and hooded and dark. Somebody help me, I need holy water.

I pull my lower lip in my mouth and nibble on it, standing in front of him. I look at him through my eyelashes with an innocent smile and I put my hands on his chest, causing him to visibly gulp. "Kenz," he says, his voice strained and his breathing hitched. "We might need to take a cold shower first."

"Shush it." I hit him in the arm playfully and roll my eyes, stepping into the shower to turn on the water. 

Zachariah is gonna see my goodies, my goodies of all goodies, and everything after that. But I was sure. I was sure I wanted this. I've never been more sure of anything in my life.

He comes in a minute later and sighs, his eyes closed as the water trickles down his beautiful face. I move closer to him and lay my head on his chest to feel his heartbeat, and for the slightest second, I think I can almost hear it hammering against his ribcage. He feels how I feel. Alive.

"Nervous?" he asks, wrapping his arms around my naked waist.

I nod, the warm water soothing my skin. "Maybe."

"You know you're beautiful, right?" he whispers, bending down to place a kiss on my forehead. "Inside and out. Don't cover yourself up for me—not now, not ever. I want you to be confident in your body, okay?"

"Okay."

"Okay," he murmurs.

Can I marry this man someday?

We stand there for a minute before he reaches over to take the soap bar in his hand, a thick lather forming between his palms before he hesitantly washes my skin. "Is this okay?" he asks, gently massaging my back with his big hands.

I look up at him with a smile and nod, holding onto his waist where his v-line starts. 

"Good," he says in a small whisper.

Fluttering my eyes close, I let him touch me however he wants. It'd be an understatement to say I melted like a candle at his burning touch, how he showed he cared for me with every sweep of his hands.

 And I don't know if there's any other reason I needed to prove that I'm utterly in love with him. Zachariah. He's not just my best friend's brother, the guy I've loved from a distance my whole life. He's the boy I've gotten to know like the back of my hand, in no connection to Kylar at all. The guy I love and will love forever.

His hands cup my breasts and he lets out a soft moan, lowering his head so he can plant a kiss on my lips. "You're perfect, baby. Absolutely perfect."

I blush and grab the soap bar to distract myself, letting my hands work around his defined physique and muscles. As we hold each other in our arms, our bodies synchronize and shiver at the same time—and that's when I get lost in Zachariah. His touch, his warmth, his familiarity.

I get lost in all of him, everything he is.

He cups my sex and washes me, pulling his lip between his teeth in concentration. He wasn't necessarily touching me to please me, but his actions showed me he was caring for me; like he knew the immense amount of trust I was giving him at this moment in time and he didn't want to take it for granted. I really really really love him.

I gasp when he pulls me flush against his body, the water above us rinsing us clean together—like one flesh, one person. Next, he puts some shampoo in his hand, the heavenly scent of lavender filling my nostrils as he messages my scalp. I let out an involuntarily moan and grip onto his waist when he gets down to my lower scalp.

"You like that?" he murmurs, his voice husky.

Eyes closed and muscles relaxed, I moan again. "Mhm."

He chuckles, moving the shower head to rinse my hair of the shampoo. "I could get used to this."

"Me too," I say, breathless once the water is out of my face.

He applies conditioner to the ends of my hair and then wraps it into a bun on the top of my head before kneeling down in front of me to make it easier for me to wash his. I take a small pump of shampoo in my hands and run my fingers through his hair, cajoling him into believing that I care for him too. So much, he doesn't even know it.

He groans and leans his forehead against my stomach, a million butterflies swarming as I try to solely concentrate on washing his hair. When I rinse him off and finish, I tug at his locks so that he looks up at me. So much wonder, fascination, and awe is beneath the pools of his deep, watery blue irises, I feel like I've been thrown into a fiery abyss. 

Zachariah stands up and pulls my jaw in between his palms, forcing me to look up at him. Then he searches my eyes, like he was asking for something—a million unreadable questions lurking behind his blue irises. And as if he found what he needed, he smiles to himself and at me, those perfect white teeth of his showing proudly as the bright bathroom light makes them shine.

And I think that's when we both knew we were feeling that one emotion we've convinced ourselves to believe in. That four letter word. Love.

"Someday," I remind him, the water trailing down his nose as he bends down to hold our eye contact.

"Someday," he whispers to himself. "Someday you'll give yourself to me, and I'll give myself to you."

And I stand there with as much hope as him that I'm ready, ready for 'someday' to come soon. When I'm ready to take a leap of faith and let him have me. Completely.

When he finally turns the water off, Zachariah steps out of the shower and comes back to hand me a towel. I take it, both happy and astonished that I let Zachariah see me—like this. Naked, vulnerable, and everything in between.

Who would've thunk it.

I dry myself off and watch as Zachariah does the same, his manhood erect and excited right in front of my eyes. When we do fuck, how is that gonna ever fit inside of me—you know what, we'll figure that out when we get there. I shake the thoughts out of my mind and wrap my hair with the towel, the sudden coldness of the room enveloping me.

In a quick second, my favorite person in the whole world wraps another fluffy towel around my naked body and holds his chin above my head. He inhales and exhales, the feeling of his chest going in and out soothing me as his hardness is pressed against my back.

"I—" he goes to say something but stops.

"That was..." I can't finish my thought either. As I've said multiple times, every time he's in the room, I'm at a bigger loss of words.

"Fucking amazing," he continues. "I—I've never done that before."

"Done what?"

"Shower with someone," he whispers, his voice muffled since his chin is still resting on the top of my head. "It's always seemed too intimate, but it was... it was nice to give a first to you for once."

"I felt very vulnerable," I agree, leaning back into him. "But I trust you."

"And I trust you," he echoes.

And so we stood there, wrapped in nothing but towels with so much to say yet so much to keep; hesitance in our words; because when something is real—so ethereal, the last thing you want to do is walk away, or even worse, have the other person walk away. And that, that was the last thing I wanted to happen at this second in time. I'd never felt so close to somebody before, and I didn't want this moment to end.

Because when it comes to Zachariah, he makes all my worries disappear. He makes me think that loving someone is worth it—that every second I wasted on his unrequited love after all these years wasn't so much a waste. Because if you don't walk away, no matter how much you want to... perhaps, maybe, you'll find your person.

And Zach, Zachariah Lane Montgomery is my person.

Author's Note:

goddammyyyy i love them, they're so pure <3

Happy update! Thought I'd surprise you with a weekend update, hehe. Hope you enjoyed this one, definitely gonna be one of my favorite of all times :) Let me know your thoughts and opinions XD