What If I Stayed - Part Four: What If We Still Fit

Some reunions are soft. Quiet. Wrapped in closure and neat endings.

This isn’t one of them.

Eli came back with a heart full of maybes and a body still aching for the boy he left behind. Now, with emotions running high and old desires rising to the surface, one night might not be enough to fix everything—but it might be enough to start again.

This chapter is high-spice, high-emotion, and everything Eli didn’t know he still needed.

What If I Stayed - Part Four: What If We Still Fit

You can’t fake the way someone touches you when they still care.

Eli

I didn’t go back to bed after he left.

I sat on the edge of the couch, elbows on my knees, hands clasped tight like I was praying to something I didn’t believe in anymore. After a while, the room’s too quiet, the kind of quiet that settles under your skin and reminds you you’re alone, even when someone’s just down the hall.

He didn’t slam the door but he also didn’t ask me to leave.

So why does it still feel like I’m one word away from ruining everything?

I push off the couch and head for the kitchen. I don’t need coffee, but I need something to do. Something to hold. Something to keep my hands from reaching for him.

The pot’s already half full, but I grab a mug anyway, fingers trembling just enough to make it slip. It clatters against the counter, not hard enough to break, but loud enough to make me flinch. I steady it. Exhale.

It used to be different, mornings like this.

We had a rhythm once, easy, wordless, instinctive. One of us would grab the mugs, the other would pour. Our hands would find each other without even trying. A brush of fingers. A soft look over the rim of a cup. The kind of quiet that didn’t feel lonely.

Now the silence hums with everything we’re not saying.

I hear the creak of the floorboards behind me and don’t have to turn around to know it’s him. There’s no mistaking the weight of him in a room. It’s in the shift of the air, the way my breath catches before I can stop it.

He walks past, barefoot, hair damp from the shower. There’s a drop of water trailing down his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of the shirt he clearly threw on too fast. It clings to his skin in places, slightly wrinkled and still damp near the hem. I look away before I can linger.

He reaches for the coffee pot. Stands beside me at the counter like it’s no big deal. Like my pulse isn’t thudding so loud I can barely hear myself think.

“You’re up early,” he says, his voice low. Unbothered.

“Didn’t sleep much,” I answer, trying to match his tone. Casual. Easy. As if my skin isn’t prickling just from being this close to him again.

We don’t move. Not really.

And then our hands brush, mine reaching for a spoon, his reaching for sugar, the two colliding in the middle, we didn’t plan it but couldn’t avoid it either.

He pauses. Just enough to make it mean something.

His eyes flick down, then up, landing on my mouth for half a second before he looks away.

It kills me.

Was it always like this and I just didn’t see it?

Or did leaving change the way he looks at me?

I swallow hard, step back from the counter like distance will help.

Because if I stay in this kitchen any longer, I’m going to say something I can’t take back.

I don’t make it far.

Just a few steps into the hallway, enough to breathe, to reset, to not say something I’ll regret.

But then I hear him behind me.

Not close, not rushing. Just there.

When I turn, Caleb’s already watching me, eyes dark and unreadable.

“Do you want me to go?” I ask, voice quieter than I mean it to be.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just shifts his weight like the truth is heavier than it should be.

There’s a flicker behind his eyes. Something caught between fear and anger. Maybe hope.

Then he says it.

“No. I think I want you to stop pretending you don’t still feel it.”

The words land somewhere deep, unsteadying everything I’ve spent the last few years trying to hold together. A breath catches in my throat. Neither of us moves.

We just… wait.

Like the silence might settle this for us.

It doesn’t.

I close the space between us slowly, one careful step at a time until I’m close enough to feel the heat of him. His breath. The tremor he doesn’t try to hide.

“Say it,” I whisper.

His jaw tightens. “You left. I don’t owe you this.”

“No,” I say softly, “but you want to.”

Something cracks then. I see it—just for a second—in the way his shoulders shift. Like holding it in is starting to hurt.

He doesn’t move.

So I do.

Just enough to lean in, to let my mouth brush his. Barely a kiss. Barely anything.

Until his hand fists the front of my shirt and yanks me the rest of the way.

This time, when our lips meet, there’s no hesitation. No question. Just heat and need and the kind of pressure that feels like a dam finally breaking. His hand slides around the back of my neck, holding me there. Mine grips his waist, anchoring us both.

A soft curse slips from his mouth between kisses.

God, I missed this.

I missed him.

When we finally pull apart, we’re both breathing hard, like the moment wasn’t just emotional, it was survival.

His eyes search mine, raw and tired and afraid.

“Tell me you’re not going to run this time,” he whispers.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

“I can’t promise anything but this,” I say, voice rough. “Right now.”

And for now, it’s enough.

We don’t say anything as he turns and walks toward the bedroom. Doesn’t grab my hand. Doesn’t look back to see if I’m following.

But I do.

Because I can’t not.

The door closes behind us with a quiet click. The sound echoes louder than it should. Like finality. Like a line we just crossed and can’t uncross.

We stand there, maybe a foot apart, breathing the same thick air.We stand there, maybe a foot apart, breathing the same thick air. Long enough for the moment to stretch. Long enough to doubt it.

Caleb swallows hard, jaw tight. Like he’s waiting for one of us to stop this.

I don’t. I can’t.

I step forward. Kiss him again, slower this time but no less desperate. It’s all tongue and heat and the taste of coffee still lingering on his breath. My fingers twist in his shirt, dragging him closer until there’s no space left to think.

He groans when I bite his bottom lip.

Rough hands slide under my shirt, dragging it up, over, gone.

“You sure about this?” he breathes.

“No,” I whisper, because I’m not. “But I want it.”

That’s all it takes.

He surges forward, walking me backward until the backs of my knees hit the bed. I sit, tugging him between my legs, and he kisses me like he’s been holding back for years—because he has. Because we both have.

He tosses his shirt aside before his hands find me again. Skin to skin, like we used to be. His chest is warm against mine, his palms reverent as they trail down my sides.

“Tell me this isn’t just another memory I’ll have to live with,” he says, voice wrecked “I can’t go through losing this again.”

“You won’t have to.” I meet his eyes. “I didn’t come back to leave.” 

Something flickers in his expression, relief, maybe. Or something heavier. The kind of look you give someone right before you fall apart for them.

He kisses me softer this time.

He kisses me softer this time. Slower. But his hands are the opposite, urgent and everywhere. He knows exactly where to touch. How I like to be touched. He remembers.

Fingers drag over my ribs. Down my stomach. His mouth follows, slow and open, like he’s marking a path only he’s allowed to take.

I gasp when he reaches the waistband of my jeans, then peels them down with agonizing control. Like he’s giving me time to stop him.

I don’t.

He kisses the inside of my thigh. Looks up, eyes molten. “Still mine?”

“Yes,” I breathe, because there’s no point pretending. Not when my whole body’s already saying it for me.

“Say you missed this,” he murmurs, mouth brushing sensitive skin.

“I missed this. Missed you.”

My voice cracks. He notices. He always did. 

“Fuck,” he says, more like a prayer than a curse. He pushes me to lay on the bed. Then his mouth is on me.

I forget how to breathe.

Every stroke, every swirl of his tongue is deliberate. Designed to undo me. One hand grips my thigh. The other finds my hand, fingers laced, holding tight, like he knows I need the grounding.

I moan his name. Once, twice, louder than I mean to. He doesn’t stop.

“Caleb—” I warn, already unraveling.

But he just looks up at me, lips wet, eyes full of heat and something softer.

“Let go,” he whispers. “I’ve got you.”

And I do.

The rush is blinding. Like all the years of want and ache and silence are finally crashing into this one moment. My spine arches, my fingers claw at the sheets, and I fall apart for him, because of him.

My body trembles in the aftershock, muscles tight and trembling as the rush fades into something softer. I don’t realize I’m shaking until he’s touching me again.

He moves up my body, kissing the line of my throat, my jaw, my mouth. I pull him down beside me, our legs tangled, foreheads pressed together.

“You ruin me,” he says, breathing hard.

I smile, eyes burning. “You saved me.”

We don’t rush the rest. It’s slower now, less frantic but somehow even more intense. He flips me gently, climbs over me, every movement full of quiet intention. Our hands find each other again.

Any clothes left fall to the floor in pieces.

When he finally presses into me, it’s steady. Deep.

I gasp, forehead dropping to the bed as he moves deeper.

“Okay?” he asks, voice ragged.

“So fucking okay,” I whisper, fingers curling tight in the sheets. “Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t.

It’s not rough, but it’s not gentle either. It’s something else entirely. That perfect mix of reverent and filthy. The kind of fucking that feels like worship. That makes you believe in things you stopped believing in a long time ago.

We lose rhythm more than once, too caught up in kissing to keep the pace. But neither of us cares. This isn’t about getting off. It’s about getting back.

His breath stutters. Mine breaks. Our mouths meet again, teeth clashing. I whimper when his hand curls around my thigh and pulls me tighter, deeper.

“No one’s ever touched me like you,” I say, voice shaking.

He buries his face in my neck, groaning into my skin.

“You’re mine,” he says. “Always were.”

And when we both finally break, together, all at once, it’s not quiet.

It’s everything.

We collapse against the bed, sweat-damp and shaking, the air thick with everything we didn’t say.

For a while, neither of us moves. Just lie there in the mess of it all, breathing each other in.

I reach for his hand. He lets me take it. Lets me hold on like maybe he still wants to be held.

And I whisper the only truth I know for sure.

“If I break again, I hope it’s here.”

The room’s gone still, thick with the kind of silence that only follows something real.

My skin’s cooling beneath the sheets, sticky and flushed. Caleb’s arm is draped heavy across my waist, not tight but solid, like he doesn’t mean to let go yet. Maybe like he doesn’t want to.

I keep my eyes on the ceiling, letting my breathing even out, willing my heart to follow.

Behind me, he shifts slightly. Not enough to pull away, just enough to get comfortable. His thumb strokes along my hipbone, lazy and slow, like a rhythm he doesn’t realize he’s keeping. The touch is soft. Familiar. Dangerous.

I swallow hard.

I want to stay in this moment. Want to bottle it up, trap it in amber, and never let it change.

But moments don’t last. They fade. They always do.

“I wanted this to be enough,” I say, so quietly I’m not sure he’ll hear me.

He does.

There’s a pause, one beat too long. Then his voice, low and a little wrecked. “It is. For now.”

It’s not the kind of answer I expected. It’s not more. But it’s not less, either.

His fingers smooth up my back, along the ridge of my spine, then stop just below my neck like they’re thinking about staying.

I don’t move.

“You ever think about this?” I ask, voice still hoarse from everything we just were.

“All the time,” he says, like it costs him something to admit it.

A quiet settles between us again. Not tense. Not heavy. Just full.

His fingers keep moving in slow, absent patterns across my back, curling at the nape of my neck before moving down again. There’s no rush in it. Just comfort. Familiarity. A quiet that doesn’t ask for more than this.

“You okay?” he murmurs, voice close to my ear.

I nod against the pillow, swallowing down the ache that’s still lodged somewhere in my chest. “Yeah.”

He shifts behind me, pulling the blanket higher over both of us. “Good.”

We don’t talk after that. Just breathe in sync, his arm heavy across my waist.

And for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I don’t know what happens next. I don’t know what this means.

But I know I’m not running.

Not now.

And maybe we’re not the same people anymore.

But maybe, just maybe we still fit.

To be Continued. Come back tomorrow for part five

Copyright © by LS Phoenix

No portion of this story may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Published by LS Phoenix

New Hampshire, USA

https://linktr.ee/authorlsphoenix

First Edition: September 2025

Cover Design by LS Phoenix