Electric Devotion

The first time it happened, I blamed the laundry room.

You have to understand the layout of the Heights Alliance dormitory to appreciate my situation. The laundry room sits in the basement, one floor below the common area, tucked behind the storage cages where we keep our costumes and the spare furniture nobody uses. It's a concrete box with two industrial washers, two dryers, and a folding table that's seen better days. Fluorescent lights. A vending machine that only stocks sports drinks and one flavor of protein bar that tastes like cardboard and regret. Romantic, right?

I was down there at eleven at night because I'd forgotten my gym uniform in the wash, and if I didn't get it dried before morning, I'd be doing hero training in a shirt that smelled like three days of accumulated sweat and the inside of my own locker. Not ideal. Not the worst thing that's ever happened to me, but close.

The machines were both running when I walked in. One had clothes tumbling in the dryer, and the other was mid-cycle on the wash. I recognized the red hoodie sitting on top of the folding table, folded with military precision. Kirishima's. The guy folds his laundry like he's presenting it for inspection. It's one of those things about him that shouldn't be endearing but absolutely is.

I sat on the bench by the door and pulled out my phone to wait. Ten minutes, maybe. The dryer hummed. The washer sloshed. The lights buzzed overhead in that way that makes you feel like you're inside a headache.

And then the smell hit me.

It wasn't sudden, exactly. More like it had been there the whole time and my brain just decided to acknowledge it. Warm cotton. Something sharp and clean underneath, like soap, but not the cheap stuff from the dispensers. And beneath that, something else. Something that made my stomach do a weird little flip.

I looked around. Nobody there. Just me and the machines and Kirishima's hoodie on the table.

I told myself I was imagining things. I'd been training hard that day, my brain was fried, and I was probably just hungry. That's a thing, right? Smelling things that aren't there when you're tired? I'd read about it somewhere. Or maybe I'd made it up. Either way, I needed to stop sniffing the air like a weirdo and focus on my phone.

But the smell didn't go away. If anything, it got stronger. And the weird flip in my stomach turned into something lower, something warmer, something I absolutely did not have time to examine at eleven o'clock at night in a basement laundry room.

The washer clicked off. I stood up, maybe too fast, and walked over to transfer my stuff to the dryer. That's when I saw it. Kirishima's laundry basket, sitting on the floor next to the table. Half-full. And on top, a pair of boxer briefs. Red. Obviously red. The guy has a color scheme and he commits to it.

I should not have looked. I should not have done what I did next.

I picked them up.

Just to move them, I told myself. Just to put them in the basket properly, because they were about to fall on the floor, and that would be rude. That was the story I was going with. I lifted them, and the smell hit me again, stronger this time, and my brain short-circuited in a way that had nothing to do with my quirk.

It was musk. Pure, unfiltered, unmistakable. The kind of smell that comes from skin and sweat and something deeper. It wasn't gross. It should have been gross. It was the opposite of gross. It was the kind of smell that made me want to bury my face in it and breathe until I passed out.

I dropped them back in the basket like they'd burned me.

My heart was pounding. My face was hot. And other parts of me were responding in ways that made me want to crawl into one of the storage cages and never come out.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I finished my laundry. I went upstairs. I took a cold shower. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and told myself it was a fluke. A one-time thing. A weird, embarrassing moment that I would never think about again.

I thought about it for three hours straight.

The next morning, I couldn't look Kirishima in the eye.

Which was a problem, because Kirishima is the kind of person who notices when you're acting weird. He's not subtle about it either. He just walks right up to you, all six feet of him, and asks what's wrong with the same earnest expression he uses when he's asking if you want the last piece of toast.

"Hey, man, you okay?" He clapped a hand on my shoulder, and I flinched. Actually flinched. Like he'd hit me with his quirk instead of a friendly gesture.

"Yeah," I said, voice cracking like I was fourteen again. "Fine. Totally fine. Just tired."

He squinted at me. Kirishima has this look he does when he's trying to figure out if you're lying. His eyebrows scrunch up and his mouth goes all crooked, and it would be funny if it wasn't so terrifying. "You sure? You look kinda pale."

"Didn't sleep great." Not a lie. "Too much caffeine." Also not a lie, technically. I'd had three energy drinks during my all-night self-flagellation session.

He nodded, apparently satisfied, and went back to his breakfast. I spent the rest of the meal staring at my rice and trying not to think about the way his shirt stretched across his shoulders. Trying and failing.

Here's the thing about Kirishima Eijirou. He's built like a brick wall that decided to go to the gym. He's got shoulders you could land a plane on and arms that make you reconsider your life choices. And he's the nicest person in the entire hero course. Maybe the entire school. He's the guy who helps you with your homework even when he's struggling with his own. He's the guy who stays after training to spot you on the weights. He's the guy who remembers your favorite flavor of protein shake and brings you one when you're having a bad day.

He's also the guy whose underwear I'd just sniffed like a complete degenerate.

I was going to hell. I was going to hell, and I was going to deserve it.

The thing is, I've always been kind of a disaster. That's not self-pity, it's just facts. My quirk turns my brain into scrambled eggs if I use it too much. I'm not the smartest guy in class. I'm not the strongest. I'm not the most disciplined. I'm the comic relief, the guy who short-circuits himself in the middle of a fight and needs to be rescued. I've made peace with that, mostly.

But this? This was a new low. Even for me.

I tried to forget about it. I really did. For three days, I avoided the laundry room. I did my wash at weird hours, early morning or late at night, and I checked to make sure the coast was clear before I went down. I avoided Kirishima when I could, which was hard because we sit next to each other in class and we're on the same training squad. I kept my responses short. I didn't make eye contact. I pretended I was coming down with something.

By day four, I was starting to think I'd gotten away with it. The memory was fading, becoming less vivid, less visceral. I could almost convince myself it hadn't happened. Almost.

And then Kirishima cornered me in the hallway after hero training.

"Okay, dude, what's going on?" He wasn't angry. He looked genuinely worried, which was worse. "You've been avoiding me all week. Did I do something?"

"No!" The word came out too loud, too fast. "No, you didn't do anything. It's not you. It's me. I'm just. I've got stuff going on."

"What kind of stuff?"

I stared at him. He stared back, patient and open and so goddamn earnest that it made my chest hurt. Kirishima doesn't do subterfuge. He doesn't do passive-aggressive. If he's got a problem with you, he tells you. If he's worried about you, he asks. He's the most straightforward person I've ever met, and right now, that straightforwardness was a weapon pointed directly at my dignity.

"I can't tell you," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because it's embarrassing."

"More embarrassing than the time you accidentally shocked yourself in front of the whole class and your hair stood up for an hour?"

"That was different."

"More embarrassing than when you called Midnight 'Mom' in front of everyone?"

"I was tired!"

"More embarrassing than the time you tried to flirt with that girl from support course and accidentally shorted out her project?"

"Okay, I get it, I've had a lot of embarrassing moments." I ran a hand through my hair, which was probably sticking up in weird directions because I hadn't bothered to style it that morning. "This is worse. This is. It's a different category."

Kirishima crossed his arms. The movement made his biceps flex, and I had to look at the ceiling. "Dude, you're my friend. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I won't judge."

"That's what people say before they judge you."

"I'm not people. I'm Kirishima."

He said it like it meant something. Like being Kirishima was a guarantee of understanding, of acceptance, of not being a complete piece of shit when your friend confesses something weird. And maybe it was. Maybe he was the one person in the world who wouldn't look at me like I was broken.

But I couldn't tell him. Not this. Not "hey, I sniffed your underwear and now I can't stop thinking about it." That's not a thing you say to your friend. That's not a thing you say to anyone.

"It's not important," I said. "I'll get over it."

He didn't look convinced, but he let it go. That's another thing about Kirishima. He knows when to push and when to back off. He's emotionally intelligent in a way that catches you off guard, because he looks like a shounen protagonist who solves all his problems with his fists.

"Okay," he said. "But if you change your mind, I'm here."

"I know."

"And if you need to talk, or whatever, I'm not going anywhere."

"I know."

"And if you're sick or something, you should go to Recovery Girl."

"I'm not sick."

"Okay." He clapped me on the shoulder again, and this time I managed not to flinch. "Just checking."

He walked away, and I stood in the hallway for a full minute, trying to remember how to breathe.

The thing about Kirishima's smell is that it's everywhere. Once I noticed it, I couldn't stop noticing it. It was in the common room when he sat on the couch. It was in the training gym when he finished a workout. It was in the classroom, faint but present, lingering in the air around his desk. It was in my head, constant and intrusive, like a song I couldn't get out of my brain.

I started finding excuses to be near him. Not obvious ones. I wasn't that far gone. Just small things. Sitting next to him at lunch instead of across the table. Partnering with him during training exercises. Offering to help him with his math homework, which he definitely needed help with, so it wasn't weird. It was just being a good friend.

A good friend who was secretly inhaling his scent like a creep.

I told myself it was curiosity. That's all. I was curious about why his smell affected me the way it did. It was a scientific question, really. A biological puzzle. I was investigating, like a detective, except instead of solving crimes, I was solving the mystery of why my body reacted to Kirishima's musk like it was the best thing I'd ever encountered.

The answer, when I finally admitted it to myself, was simple and horrifying.

I was attracted to him.

Not just attracted. Attracted in a way that went beyond his looks, beyond his personality, beyond all the obvious reasons someone might like Kirishima Eijirou. I was attracted to the core of him, the animal part, the sweat and skin and heat. I wanted to press my face into his neck and breathe until I forgot my own name. I wanted to roll around in his scent like a dog in grass. I wanted.

I wanted.

And that was a problem, because he was my friend, and he was straight, and even if he wasn't straight, he was definitely not interested in me. I'm Denki Kaminari. I'm the human bug zapper. I'm the guy who's good for a laugh and not much else. Kirishima deserves someone strong and reliable and cool. Someone like Bakugou, maybe, except Bakugou is a walking explosion and Kirishima deserves better than that too. He deserves someone who can keep up with him, who can match his energy, who can be the kind of hero he wants to be.

Not me. Never me.

So I did what any reasonable person would do. I decided to suffer in silence.

This lasted approximately two more days.

On the sixth day after the laundry room incident, I found myself in the worst possible situation. I was in Kirishima's room, ostensibly to study for an upcoming English exam, but actually because he'd invited me and I couldn't say no. His room is exactly what you'd expect. Posters of heroes on the walls. A punching bag in the corner. Weights stacked neatly by the desk. Everything red and black and aggressively masculine.

And it smelled like him. Not the faint, lingering smell from the common areas. The real thing. Concentrated. Overwhelming. I sat on his floor with my textbook open and tried to focus on verb conjugations while my brain melted out my ears.

"You okay?" Kirishima asked. He was sitting on his bed, legs crossed, notebook balanced on his knee. "You look kinda flushed."

"Fine," I said. "Just hot in here."

"It's not that hot."

"Maybe I'm getting sick."

"You said that last week."

"Maybe I'm still getting sick."

He set his notebook aside and looked at me with that concerned expression again. The one that made me want to confess everything and also run away screaming. "Denki, seriously. What's going on with you? You've been weird for days. You keep zoning out. You're jumpy. You look at me like I've got two heads."

"I don't look at you like that."

"You do. You've been doing it all week."

I closed my textbook. There was no point pretending I was studying. I hadn't absorbed a single word in the last hour. "It's nothing. It's stupid."

"It's not stupid if it's bothering you."

"It is, though. It's really stupid."

He got off the bed and sat on the floor across from me. Close enough that I could smell him, really smell him, the sweat from his morning workout still clinging to his skin. I gripped my knees to keep my hands from doing something insane.

"Tell me," he said. "Please. I'm your friend. I want to help."

And here's the thing. I was tired. I was so tired of lying, of avoiding, of pretending I was fine when I was losing my mind. I was tired of the secret sitting in my chest like a stone. And Kirishima was looking at me with those big, earnest eyes, and he'd said please, and I couldn't say no to him. I've never been able to say no to him.

So I told him.

Not everything. Not the sniffing. Not the explicit details. Just the shape of it, the outline. "I've been noticing something," I said. "About you. And it's weird, and I don't know how to deal with it, and I'm sorry."

"What kind of something?"

"Your. Your smell."

The words hung in the air between us. Kirishima blinked. His expression didn't change, which was somehow worse than if he'd looked disgusted. He just sat there, processing, while I wanted to sink through the floor.

"My smell?" he repeated.

"Yeah."

"Like, my cologne?"

"You don't wear cologne."

"Right." He looked down at his hands. "So, my. My body smell?"

"Your musk," I said, because I'm an idiot who doesn't know when to stop. "The way you smell after training. Or when you've been wearing something for a while. It's. I like it. A lot. More than I should. And I know that's gross and weird and you probably want to punch me, but I had to tell you because it's driving me crazy and I can't stop thinking about it."

Silence.

I stared at the floor. At the pattern of the carpet. At anything that wasn't Kirishima's face. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. This was it. This was the end of our friendship. He was going to tell everyone, or worse, he was going to be nice about it and that would be even more humiliating. He'd pat me on the shoulder and say "it's okay, man, we can still be friends" and then he'd avoid me forever and I'd have to transfer schools and change my name and move to a different country.

"That's it?" he said.

I looked up. "What?"

"That's what's been bothering you? My smell?"

"Yes? What else would it be?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I thought maybe I did something. Said something. I thought you were mad at me."

"I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at me. I'm the one being weird."

"You're not being weird." He said it like it was obvious. Like I'd just told him I liked his taste in music instead of confessing to a bizarre sensory obsession. "I mean, it's a little unusual, but it's not weird. People like all kinds of things."

"Normal people don't like the way their friends smell."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone. Says basic social convention."

Kirishima leaned back on his hands and looked at me with a thoughtful expression. "I don't know, man. I think you're being too hard on yourself. It's just a smell. It's not like you're hurting anyone."

"I'm making you uncomfortable."

"You're not. I promise." He smiled, small and genuine. "Honestly, I'm kind of flattered? Like, I work hard on my body, you know? It's nice that someone appreciates it."

"That's not. That's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?"

I didn't have an answer for that. My brain had officially stopped working. Kirishima was sitting across from me, smiling at me, telling me he wasn't disgusted, and I couldn't process any of it.

"So," he said, "what do you want me to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"About the smell thing. Do you want me to, like, wear more deodorant? Or shower more? Because I already shower twice a day, but I could do three if it helps."

"No! No, don't do that. That's the opposite of what I want."

He raised his eyebrows. "So you want me to smell more?"

"I don't know what I want." That was a lie. I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to bury my face in his armpit and stay there until I died. But I couldn't say that. I couldn't say any of it. "I just. I needed you to know. So you could tell me to stop being weird, and I could work on getting over it."

"What if I don't want you to get over it?"

The words didn't make sense. They were English, I recognized them, but they didn't parse. "What?"

Kirishima shifted, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward. His expression was serious now, the way it gets when he's about to do something brave. "What if I don't mind? What if I'm okay with it?"

"You're not making sense."

"I'm making perfect sense. You like the way I smell. I don't have a problem with that. So why do you have to get over it?"

"Because it's weird."

"You keep saying that, but I don't think it is. I think it's just. It's just a thing. A thing about you. And I like things about you. I like that you're funny. I like that you're brave even when you're scared. I like that you care about your friends. What's one more thing?"

I stared at him. He stared back. The room was very quiet, except for the sound of my heart trying to escape my chest.

"You're not grossed out," I said.

"No."

"You don't think I'm a freak."

"I think you're Denki. And Denki is my friend. And I'm not going to stop being your friend because of something like this."

Something in my chest loosened. Something tight and painful that I'd been carrying for days, maybe weeks, maybe longer. I hadn't realized how scared I was until the fear started to fade. Scared of losing him. Scared of being alone. Scared of being the weird kid with the weird fixation.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay."

He smiled, big and bright, the kind of smile that makes you feel like everything's going to be fine. "Good. So, do you want to finish studying? Or do you want to talk about this more?"

"I don't think I can focus on English right now."

"Fair." He stood up and stretched, and his shirt rode up, and I caught a glimpse of his stomach. I looked away fast. "You want to play video games instead?"

"Sure."

We played video games for two hours. I lost every match. I didn't care.

That night, I lay in bed and replayed the conversation in my head. He'd been so calm about it. So accepting. Like I'd told him I liked a weird food combination instead of confessing to a scent fetish. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand him.

But I was grateful. More grateful than I could say.

The next day, Kirishima found me after class. He had a plastic bag in his hand, the kind you get from convenience stores, and he was holding it like it contained something fragile.

"Hey," he said. "I got you something."

"What is it?"

He handed me the bag. I looked inside.

A pair of boxer briefs. Red. Obviously red. And they smelled like him. Strongly. Like he'd worn them for a full day and then put them in a bag and saved them for me.

I looked up at him. My face was on fire. My brain was short-circuiting. "Kirishima, what the hell?"

"You said you liked my smell." He rubbed the back of his head, looking almost shy. "So I thought. I don't know. I thought you might want something to. To have. For when I'm not around."

"You saved your underwear for me."

"I saved my underwear for you."

"That's. That's insane."

"Is it?" He shrugged. "You're my friend. You have a thing. I can help with the thing. It's not a big deal."

"It's a huge deal. This is. This is not normal friend behavior."

"Since when have I ever been normal?"

He had a point. Kirishima has never been normal. He's the guy who runs into burning buildings without a second thought. He's the guy who befriends everyone, even the people who don't want to be befriended. He's the guy who would give you the shirt off his back, literally, if you asked.

And apparently, he's the guy who would give you his dirty underwear if he thought it would make you happy.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I just stood there, holding a bag of his underwear, while the world rearranged itself around me.

"Thank you," I managed.

"You're welcome." He smiled. "Let me know if you need more."

He walked away. I stood in the hallway for a long time, holding the bag, trying to remember how to function.

That night, I took the bag to my room and locked the door. I sat on my bed and pulled out the boxer briefs and held them in my hands. They were soft. Worn. Warm from being in the bag. And they smelled like him. Not faintly. Not subtly. They smelled like Kirishima had worn them for a full day of training and then taken them off and put them directly into a bag for me.

I brought them to my face and breathed.

It was overwhelming. It was everything. It was the smell from the laundry room, the smell from his bedroom, the smell that had been haunting me for days. But stronger. More concentrated. More him.

I fell back on my bed and pressed the fabric to my nose and let myself feel it. The warmth in my chest. The heat in my stomach. The way my whole body relaxed and tightened at the same time.

I was so screwed.

And I didn't care.

The thing about getting what you want is that it doesn't make you want it less. It makes you want it more. The first pair of underwear was a revelation, but it was also a gateway. I wore them to bed that night, not wearing them, holding them, and I woke up with my face buried in them and a problem that required a very long, very cold shower.

The next day, I couldn't look at Kirishima without blushing. He noticed, obviously, but he didn't say anything. He just smiled at me in that way he does, like he knows a secret, and went about his day.

Three days later, he gave me another pair.

"These are from yesterday," he said, handing me the bag. "I did a lot of cardio."

I didn't ask for details. I didn't need to. The smell told me everything. Sweat and heat and the particular musk that I was starting to crave like a drug.

"Thanks," I said.

"No problem."

This became a thing. A regular thing. Every few days, Kirishima would find me and hand me a bag, and I would take it to my room and spend the evening with my face buried in fabric that smelled like him. It was the most embarrassing, most wonderful, most confusing arrangement I'd ever had.

And it was starting to affect other parts of my life.

I couldn't focus in class. I couldn't sleep at night. I couldn't train without getting distracted by the way Kirishima moved, the way he sweat, the way he smelled when he was pushing himself. I was obsessed. Completely, pathetically obsessed.

Bakugou noticed.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Dunce Face?" he snapped one afternoon during training. I'd zoned out in the middle of a drill and gotten hit by a practice projectile. "You're even more useless than usual."

"Nothing's wrong," I said. "Just tired."

"You've been tired for two weeks. Either you're dying or you're hiding something."

"I'm not hiding anything."

"You're a terrible liar."

He wasn't wrong. I'm a terrible liar. But I wasn't about to tell Bakugou the truth. He'd kill me. He'd kill me and then he'd kill Kirishima and then he'd kill me again for good measure.

"It's personal," I said.

"Personal." He said the word like it tasted bad. "Fine. Keep your secrets. But if you screw up in a real fight because you're distracted, I'll blast you into next week."

"Noted."

He stomped off. I watched him go and wondered how long I could keep this up. How long before someone else noticed. How long before Kirishima got tired of supplying me with his dirty laundry and told me to get a grip.

But he didn't. He kept giving me bags. He kept smiling at me. He kept being the best friend I'd ever had, even though I was using him for his smell like some kind of pervert.

I should have felt guilty. I did feel guilty. But the guilt was a small thing, a quiet thing, buried under the weight of my need. I needed him. I needed his smell. I needed the way it made me feel, safe and wanted and whole.

I didn't know what that said about me. I didn't want to know.

Two weeks after the first bag, Kirishima knocked on my door.

"Hey," he said when I opened it. "Can I come in?"

"Sure."

He walked in and sat on my bed. I sat on my desk chair. The room was small, and the space between us felt charged, electric in a way that had nothing to do with my quirk.

"So," he said. "I've been thinking."

"About?"

"About this. About us. About the thing we're doing."

My stomach dropped. This was it. He was going to tell me to stop. He was going to say it was too weird, too much, that he'd been trying to be nice but he couldn't do it anymore.

"What about it?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

"I've been thinking about why I'm doing it. The bags. The underwear. I've been trying to figure out why I don't mind."

"And?"

"And I think I figured it out." He looked at me, and his eyes were serious, the way they get when he's about to say something important. "I think I like it."

"Like what?"

"I like that you want it. I like that you want something from me. I like that I can give it to you." He paused. "I like making you happy."

"That's. That's just being a good friend."

"Is it?" He leaned forward. "Because I don't think I'd do this for anyone else. I don't think I'd save my underwear for anyone else. I don't think I'd think about it as much as I do. I think about you, Denki. I think about what you're doing with them. I think about you smelling them. I think about you."

The room was very quiet. I could hear my own breathing, too fast, too shallow.

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"I'm saying I don't think this is just friendship. For me." He held my gaze. "Is it just friendship for you?"

No. It had never been just friendship for me. It had been something else from the beginning, something I'd been too scared to name. I'd told myself it was just the smell, just a weird quirk, just a thing I could get over. But it wasn't. It was him. It had always been him.

"No," I said. "It's not."

He smiled. That big, bright, beautiful smile that made my heart do things it shouldn't. "Good. I was hoping you'd say that."

And then he stood up, and he crossed the room, and he sat on the edge of my desk, close enough that I could smell him. Not the concentrated smell from the bags. The real thing. The living thing. The smell of his skin and his sweat and his heat.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked.

I nodded. I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe.

He leaned in, and his lips touched mine, and the world exploded. Not literally. I didn't short-circuit. But something inside me lit up, bright and hot and overwhelming. His mouth was soft and warm, and he tasted like the sports drink he'd been drinking and something underneath that was just him. I reached up and grabbed his shirt, pulling him closer, and he made a sound, low in his throat, that I felt in my bones.

We kissed for a long time. Minutes, maybe hours. I lost track. His hands were in my hair, on my shoulders, on my back. I was pressed against him, breathing him in, drowning in him.

When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathing hard. His lips were red. His eyes were bright. He looked at me like I was something precious, something worth having.

"I've wanted to do that for a while," he said.

"How long?"

"Since the laundry room."

I froze. "You knew about the laundry room?"

He laughed. "Denki, you're not subtle. I saw you pick up my underwear. I saw you smell them. I saw you drop them like they were on fire."

"You saw that?"

"I see everything." He kissed my forehead. "I was waiting for you to tell me. I figured you'd get there eventually."

"You could have said something."

"I wanted you to figure it out on your own. I wanted you to come to me." He smiled. "And you did. Eventually."

I didn't know whether to be embarrassed or grateful. I settled on both. "So the bags. The underwear. You were. You were trying to."

"I was trying to give you what you wanted. And I was trying to show you that I was okay with it. That I wanted it too."

"You wanted it too?"

"I wanted you." He said it simply, like it was obvious. "I still want you. Is that okay?"

It was more than okay. It was everything. It was the thing I'd been too scared to hope for, the thing I'd been denying myself for weeks. He wanted me. He wanted me.

"Yeah," I said. "It's okay."

He kissed me again, slower this time, deeper. And I let myself fall into it, into him, into the thing that had been building between us since the first time I smelled him in that basement laundry room.

I didn't know where this was going. I didn't know what would happen next. But for the first time in weeks, I wasn't scared. I was exactly where I wanted to be.

In his arms. Breathing him in. Home.